


In the Land of Gods and Monsters

by lisainthesky



Category: Captain America
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Brainwashing, Dungeons and Dragons, Idiots in Love, M/M, Magic, Mentions of Past Torture, Multi, Stucky Big Bang 2016, Violence, but also fluff, guess I'll tag that then, mild body horror, the author plays too much dungeons and dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-11 14:54:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 40,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7897009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisainthesky/pseuds/lisainthesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve has been looking for answers about his family his whole life. At 23, he's pretty sure it's time to give up, but when an entire town of magical beings offers to help, there may be some hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Alec for the beta and the title idea (from a Lana deal Rey song), Mab for cheering me on, and thestuckylibrary for hosting this crazy awesome thing.

The problem with curses - or prophecies, or destiny - was that they tended to be a bit self-fulfilling, Steve had decided. Oedipus wouldn’t have actually killed his father and fucked his mother if no one had brought it up to begin with and scared them into getting rid of him. Self-fulfilling. 

Curses caused fear, which was all they were meant to do, in the end, and that fear made people act like morons. And assholes. And then everyone ended up unhappy. 

All the logic in the world didn’t make it any less inconvenient. And as Steve had learned, whether you were actually cursed or not had little impact on your life if people believed you were cursed. That was enough to turn them into assholes, and make life unnecessarily difficult.

Steve was pretty sure he wasn’t actually cursed. He’d gone to every psychic and metaphysical specialist he could find in several different states, and all of them had been unable to help. You aren’t cursed, they said. Explanations of the things that happened to him had earned him another look or reading or fizzle of magic, and then sympathetic looks and disappointment. 

Today’s psychic was even less down to earth than even usual. Steve had met a lot of psychics, a side-effect of eight years trying to sort out whatever magic had been disrupting his life as long as he could remember.

The little one bedroom apartment was sparsely furnished, and impeccably neat, but Steve attributed that to the non-psychic roommate. Psychics this powerful weren’t known for their attention to their surroundings.

Currently, Steve’s hosts were sitting together on the couch. The roommate, who had introduced himself as Ben, was flipping through a magazine. Next to him, Reed was perched tensely on the edge of the couch next to him, bony hands around his deck of tarot cards. He’d picked them up and put them down three times so far, but hadn’t taken his eyes off Steve or even spoken since he’d entered the apartment.

He shifted, hummed once, then set the cards down again. Finally, Ben closed his magazine and set it on the coffee table.

“Reed,” he said. His hand hovered over Reed’s shoulder.

Reed turned his head without taking his eyes off Steve. “What?”

“Do you need help?”

“I…” He swallowed, blinked once, and shook his head. “No.” This time, he really looked at Steve, meeting his eyes. “I can’t help you.”

Ben sighed. Steve blinked. “What?”

“You’re not cursed,” Reed said.

“You sound awfully certain about that for someone who hasn’t done anything to figure it out,” Steve muttered, knowing he was being rude and unable to stop himself.

Ben’s lips thinned, but Reed barely looked perturbed. “I don’t need to. You want to know why things keep going wrong around you. You already know you’re not cursed, which I can confirm for you, but I can also tell you that what’s been done to you is far beyond my range of expertise. I’m a psychic, not a witch, and that’s what you need.”

Pulling information out of thin air was an easy trick, and even if Steve wasn’t impressed by it anymore, that didn’t mean Reed was a fake. Steve studied him for a moment, but the words rang true. Most psychics didn’t recommend other help anyway, certainly not within the first five minutes of a meeting. It wasn’t exactly good for business.

Steve slumped back into his chair with a sigh. A witch. Great. Because what Steve had was loads of time to chase down someone who didn’t want to be found. Witches weren’t exactly a dime a dozen, and in world where being even a little bit psychic made people cross the street away from you, they were particularly reluctant to make themselves known. 

“Any idea where I can find one?” Steve asked the ceiling. 

He wasn’t really expecting an answer, but the long silence that greeted the question made him lift his head to look at them.

Reed was putting his tarot cards away, not looking at Steve. Ben was watching him. When Reed turned back from the shelf, he was frowning slightly.

“Maybe.”

Steve sat up. “Really? I--”

“I’ll get in touch with some people,” he cut Steve off. “No promises.” Steve nodded, expecting more, but Reed just turned and went into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

Steve looked at Ben, who sighed. “No promises,” he repeated. “But don’t leave the city for a few days. I’ll call you if we can’t do anything, okay? It’s - they’re not easy, you know?”

“Yeah, of course,” Steve nodded. “I know. It was hard enough finding you guys.”

Ben stood up, clearly dismissing Steve. He stood up to follow. The bedroom door opened again.

Reed stuck his head out, said, “Don’t do anything stupid,” and closed the door. Ben sighed again and rolled his eyes slightly. Steve snorted.

“Thanks,” he called. “How much do I owe you?” He asked. Ben waved a hand.

“We haven’t helped you yet. We’ll get in touch if we need to.” 

Steve shrugged. Normally he'd insist, but Reed was kind of annoying, and Ben was right. “If you’re sure.”

Ben led him to the door, warned Steve again about leaving the city, and locked the door behind him. Steve went home, trying not to feel too hopeful. Finding a witch wasn’t going to be easy, and knowing he needed one only put him a little closer to the answers he needed. But this was more new information than he’d gotten in a year, and he couldn’t deny a sense of triumph.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve's week goes from bad to worse.

Two days after his meeting with Reed and Ben, the feeling of accomplishment wore off. On the fourth day, it became impatience. When he hadn’t heard from them a week later, he was so cranky about it that the woman at the art gallery who was selling his art started to get jittery. Steve could see her getting nervous, wanting to get away from him, and even as he tried to dial in his emotions, it only made him more irritated. 

Several minutes into their conversation, he saw the gallery security guard wandering closer, looking on edge. It did nothing for Steve’s mood. Just as he was about to admit that he should probably leave, having not retained anything she’d told him in the last five minutes at least, the guard came closer, hovering at the end of the counter they were talking at.

“Everything okay over here?”

Steve blinked, and looked from him to the saleswoman. She looked relieved. Steve tried not to show his disappointment.

“I’m fine,” Steve said. He offered her an apologetic smile. “I’m - I’ve had a headache all day. Been making it really hard to concentrate.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Do you think we could continue this conversation tomorrow, or maybe over the phone? I should really just go home and sleep it off.”

She nodded quickly. “That’s no problem. Give us a call.”

Steve nodded and shook her hand and left quickly, glaring at the ground.

“I’m not pouting,” Steve muttered to his shoes, hearing his dad laughing at him. “I’m...brooding.” He rolled his eyes, tipped his head back and sighed at the clouds. “And now talking to myself too.”

People were jostling him as they walked by, busy New Yorkers with no time for a guy just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, even one as big as Steve. After the second person swore at him, Steve started walking again, letting the flow of pedestrians hustle him along into the subway tunnels.

What now? Reed and Ben had seemed so willing to help, but maybe it was just a dead end. Like everything else. Maybe the universe was sending a sign, Steve thought, that he needed to give up. This quest for information, even the barest scraps, was slow, tedious, and every new link only made it just seemed more impossible. 

The idea of giving up, however, was just as impossible. Steve had never been a quitter, never good at giving up a fight, stubborn till the last. Joseph had always joked that he must have gotten it from his mother, but he was the same way. He’d harped on his parents to spend time with Steve until the day he died, even though they were resistant and honestly terrified of Steve.

What are we without family, Joseph always said to them, to Steve, to his friends. Which was a nice sentiment, but it hadn’t given Steve anywhere to go when Joseph died. In the end, this curse - or not-curse, maybe - had won out, pushing Joseph and Steve away from everyone in the family, making them too afraid to take him in. 

Wasn’t his fault, though. Wasn’t anyone’s fault, maybe, not that it changed anything. Cursed or not, Steve was alone now, hunting down a woman he’d never met, with nothing more to go on than the name Sarah and the vague description from a man in love.

Steve leaned his head against the door to his little studio, letting the scent of paint and paper relax him slightly, bring him out of his pity party. 

He wouldn’t give up. He knew that. It seemed stupid, futile, insane to keep trying, but Joseph had never wanted anything more than for Steve to find out who and what he was, and honestly neither had Steve. Even if it turned out Sarah didn’t want him - and Steve was infinitely aware that that was possible, even likely given the way she’d dumped him on Joseph’s doorstep at four months old - it would be nice to have some answers about all the crazy shit that happened to him. Maybe he could learn to control it, and get his life together and stop worrying about people cowering and windows shattering whenever he lost his temper.

After a quick dinner, Steve sat down with a beer and his pencils, thinking maybe he could work on a commission for the evening. Maybe worrying about this, about how he would make money, would take his mind off his other problems.

This was to be a futile endeavor as well, he decided after three beers and several scrapped ideas. There was no focusing on anything tonight, too much energy after a week of anticipation leaving him jittery and anxious, too unfocused to work, too energetic to sleep.

Steve shoved away from his desk, wrinkled his nose at the apartment, and picked up his jacket. A walk. Maybe a drink. Maybe he could just run and keep running and not come back.

He huffed a laugh at his own dramatics and locked the apartment behind him.

***

What Steve forgot, heading out that evening in a fit of jittery energy, was that even when he wasn’t in a Mood, as Joseph had liked to say, he had a tendency to draw attention and trouble in equal parts. When he was in Mood, there was no telling what would happen around, to, or because of him. And there was no stopping whatever was happening.

_There is the slightest possibility,_ Steve admitted, watching chaos unfold around him in the bar, _that I wanted something like this to happen tonight._

What happened was that Steve had walked several blocks in the warm late-summer evening before being spotted by a pair of young women about his age heading into a bar. They had informed him that they were part of a bachelorette party, and there was a scavenger hunt happening and they needed at least one dance partner. When Steve had seemed mostly uninterested, they had very firmly and almost soberly informed him that they weren’t actually asking him, and then dragged him into the bar.

It could have been worse (it got worse). The bar was crowded with people their age, easy listening hits being piped through the speakers, and the girls had immediately bought Steve several very strong apology drinks. 

“We were running out of time,” Kim, a bridesmaid who had pulled him in, informed him. Apparently the person with the least points was on in-law duty for the bride the next day, and although they were sharing Steve, that was better than not making it in the time limit.

That was easy enough to accept, and there was free alcohol on offer, and after a couple drinks, Steve felt significantly less frantic than he had earlier. When Kim told him they were headed to the next bar for the last part of the scavenger hunt, she smiled and leaned in with a hand on his arm, and Steve decided to go with them.

That was when things started to go downhill. The next bar was bigger and fuller, with a live band on the stage playing loud covers and a lot of people dancing. That part was okay. It wasn’t really Steve’s scene, but once he’d had several more drinks, danced with a couple of the girls, and was getting more than a little friendly with Kim, it seemed fine. 

Which was, of course, when things really went left. 

The bride-to-be was frantic, and very drunk, when she found Steve and Kim on the dance floor, grabbing both their hands and dragging them back to the table, shouting incoherently the whole way. It was too loud to hear until they got to the table and leaned in close. Apparently, the maid of honor was missing, although Steve and Kim were the first people the bride had found and asked.

Drunk, but still more sober than the bride, they exchanged amused looks. Steve left Kim to take care of her, and went looking for their friend. 

He found her at the bar talking easily with two men. They all looked like they were having fun, but just before Steve turned to leave and inform the bride that she was safe, he saw one of them tip something into her drink while the other distracted her.

Steve scowled, drew his shoulders back, and stomped through the crowd before he even had a plan. As he reached them, one of the guys reached out to touch the girl, but Steve caught his wrist before he could, glaring.

“What the hell?” The guy returned the glare, trying to pull his wrist from away and grunting when Steve’s grip tightened. 

Steve looked at his friend, the one who’d been spiking the drink. “I saw that, you piece of shit,” he said, voice low. “I saw you put something in her drink.”

Behind him, the girl startled. “What? That’s--Steve, I know these guys. We went to school together.”

Steve’s scowl deepened. “That’s great. They’re still trying to roofie you.”

“Fuck off,” the guy Steve held snapped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, let go of me, asshole!”

Steve just looked at his friend, who was going red, eyes darting around the room, looking anywhere but Steve and the girl.

“How about you?” Steve asked. “Know anything?”

The guy finally looked at him, then at the girl, and at his friend. He straightened, squared his jaw, and very obviously lied, “No.”

“Then why don’t you drink it?”

Another long silence. “Fuck off,” he said finally.

Next to Steve, the maid of honor made a small, angry noise. 

Steve shoved the first guy into his friend, and both of them toppled into the bar. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Before they could straighten themselves up completely, several other men nearby stood up at their tables, shouting. Steve stepped away, herding the girl behind him. Of course they had friends with them.

“Okay,” he said, putting his hands up. “I just wanted them to leave the girl alone.”

“She was perfectly fine,” someone said. “They were talking. She was fine.”

Six guys stepped towards him, plus the two already there. Steve looked around for help, but everyone who had noticed was just staring, backing away slightly. Behind him, the maid of honor had a fist clenched in Steve’s shirt.

“Just because I talk to someone doesn’t mean I want to have sex with him,” she snapped. “Or him and all his friends.”

Steve shifted just in time for the two closest guys to reach for them, one for Steve and one for the woman behind him. She yelled, and Steve shoved the guy off himself, only to have two of his friends there suddenly, reaching out and pulling him away from her. As soon as there was room between them, Steve found himself surrounded by men, unable to see past them, listening to her yelling obscenities.

Someone’s fist met Steve’s jaw, effectively distracting him, and was followed by a hit to his stomach. He looked around, watching the dense crowd of people push away around them, barely able to see in the dark of the club, and hands pulled him back to a standing position.

This time, Steve was braced for the hit to his jaw. His head snapped to the side, and Steve pushed back into the people holding him, throwing his shoulders into somebody and sending them all to the ground.

In retrospect, that was stupid, because as soon as Steve was even slightly disentangled, they were on him, kicking at his ribs. Steve covered his face, trying to breathe for even a second between blows.

“Gonna get up, bitch?” Someone jeered after a particularly vicious kick. “Maybe you’ll mind your own business now, huh?”

Steve clenched his teeth, and when the next kick landed he curled himself around the leg, fingers digging into the guy’s ankle. 

“Nope,” he said, and he _pushed_ , ribs aching, anger at the guy and frustration with his whole life boiling over until he could feel something in his brain snap and push with him, a rush of heat through Steve’s entire body. There was a bright flash of light, leaving spots over Steve’s vision. The man he’d been wrapped around was gone. 

Steve blinked, trying to clear the sunspots from his eyes, and sat up. The music had stopped. He could hear people groaning, but other than that, silence. His vision started to clear, and Steve looked around.

It looked like a force field had pushed every person near Steve back a good ten feet. He was in the center of a bare circle of floor, looking at the men who had been beating on him lying heaped with some of the bystanders. Everyone was groaning, shuffling slightly, cursing. Noise was picking back up in the club, but the music didn’t start up. Beyond the people piled on each other, everyone else was frozen, staring at Steve with wide, frightened eyes. 

Steve swallowed - his mouth tasted like honey, all lingering flavors of alcohol gone - and pushed himself to his feet. Everyone standing around drew back slightly, and it was like the entire room was holding it’s breath. Steve turned, trapped even while no one moved, and his eyes met Kim the bridesmaid’s. She was near the front of the crowd, staring, looking just as terrified as everyone.

“What are you?” She whispered. 

Steve opened his mouth even though he didn’t have an answer. After another moment of staring, he turned and ran for the door. People scrambled out of his way, gasping, a few frightened shrieks following him out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The author knows nothing about bar fights, honestly, having never been in one, in spite of her best efforts at changing that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, now Steve has to leave town..
> 
> Shit.

There were sirens in the distance as Steve ran home. Sirens in the city wasn’t unique to Steve making trouble, but he still pushed himself harder, flying around corners and people, ignoring the shouts behind him.

 _Don’t leave the city,_ Ben had told him. Steve almost laughed, short of breath as he was. Too late for that. They probably weren’t going to call him anyway. The thought made the anger in his gut clench tighter, push him to run harder.

The door to his apartment banged against the wall when Steve slammed through, gasping wetly.

“Okay,” he said out loud. He stared at the little studio, thinking about what he needed to bring right now to get out of town. He didn’t need everything, mostly clothes and toiletries, his more personal stuff. With any luck he could come back in a week and collect anything else he wanted.

Still, he should bring the personal stuff. Just in case someone did manage to connect him to the incident in the club. He hadn’t told anyone his full name, but plenty of people had gotten good looks at him. Kim at the very least would be able to give a good description. 

Steve sighed, shoulders slumping as he stuffed clothes into a duffel bag. It would probably be on the news. Because magic always made the news. Especially when people were hurt, and even if Steve had been defending that girl, there would be an outcry about magical beings hiding in the cities, how they were dangerous, couldn’t be trusted. His face would probably be all over the news, and even if no one in authority wanted to hurt him, average citizens were easily motivated by fear.

The world was not friendly towards people with even a little magic. Psychics hid their powers, but were usually able to stay in cities easily, creating a quiet, underground network of contacts for the rest of the magical community. It enabled people like Steve to contact them, but left them able to wander the cities so creatures with less ability could still access civilization if they needed to.

Not that Steve knew any other magical beings personally. He sort of assumed the existence of things like fairies, but couldn’t really say through experience. He didn’t even know what he was, other than ‘not human.’

The door opened behind Steve and he whirled around, looking for a weapon. Two people were standing in the doorway, watching him with empty hands.

“You’ve made quite a mess, Rogers,” said the petite red-headed woman. She was beautiful the way a fire was, magnetic and stunning and obviously dangerous. Her voice was husky and amused, the slightest accent clipping the words. 

“What the fuck,” Steve said. He hadn’t locked the door, like an idiot, but no one should have been able to find him this quickly. “What--who are you?”

“Nick Fury,” the man said, stepping into the room. He was huge, barrel-chested, his shaved head revealing dark scars across his scalp and face. One eye was hidden under an eye patch. The other was so dark it was almost black. He was wearing a lot of leather. “This is Natasha Romanov. We’ve got an offer for you.”

Steve took a small step back as they moved in, closing and locking the door behind them. “What?”

“I’m a witch,” Romanov said easily. “Nick here is a cyclops when he doesn’t look like a human. Reed Richards contacted us about you, said you needed some help with something that wasn’t a curse. We’ve been watching you for a few days now, and after tonight, we’ve decided that Shield might be the best place for you.”

“Shield?” Steve’s hands clenched, and he looked around the room for a weapon again. There were some things he could throw, but nothing that would help if they were what they said they were.

“Don’t worry, Rogers,” Fury said. “We’re not from the government or anything, not here to lock you up or throw you out of the city. Shield is a town founded by and for people like us.”

“Like us?”

“Magic,” Romanoff said. “Don’t play dumb. Reed told us what he could, and like I said, we’ve been watching you.” She sat on the kitchen table, swinging her feet slightly. It was a casual movement, but it felt very deliberate, to show Steve how non-threatening she was.

“No one is going to force you to come with us,” Fury continued with a little shrug. “But you’re already packing up. We’ve got a car big enough to take most of your stuff, and a town full of people like you. You won’t get kicked out for the magic, we can help answer some of your questions, you’ll have a place to live. You can leave any time.”

Sirens in the distance punctuated the words, and even if they weren’t looking for Steve, his heart pumped a little harder.

“This is crazy,” he said, but there was already a part of him that knew he was going to say yes. He was running out of options. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t,” Fury said. “But do you have other options?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters up because this one is short and also I'm impatient lol whoops


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve trusts total strangers while they drive him into the woods.

“So, how long has this town been around?” Steve asked.

Natasha twisted around in her seat, feet resting on Fury’s dashboard. “It was founded by Peggy Carter in the early fifties as a haven for people like us. She’s an elf, fought for the allies in World War 2 and was almost outed because of it. But she’s never really been one to just keep her head down. Too noble, wanted to keep helping other people stay safe.”

Steve tilted his head at her. “Is that a bad thing?”

“I didn’t say that.” Natasha met his gaze steadily. “She’s a good woman. You’d probably like her.”

Steve smiled tightly, not missing the change of subject. “So, you two are just errand runners?”

Natasha blinked at him slowly. Fury snorted. “Carter and I go back a few decades. It took me a while to want to join her little coven, but the world is getting smaller, Steve. Less room for people like us. Less trust.”

“So you didn’t have a choice either?”

There was a pause. Finally Natasha said, “Steve, no one is forcing you to come to Shield. We want to help you.”

“And what are you getting out of it?”

Natasha looked a little pleased with the question. “Well, I get to study you.” At Steve’s look, she rolled her eyes. “Not like that. I get to find out what you are, what you can do, why, how. I like to know things. And we will figure these things out.”

“You know I’ve been trying to find those things out for my whole life, right?”

“We’ve got more than psychics and hedge witches on our side,” she said.

Steve couldn’t argue with that - he didn’t know what kind of people were at Shield, and she was right that all the psychics and such that he’d seen over the years had never had anything useful to tell him.

“So where is this place?” He finally asked

“Upstate. You ever heard of Piseco Lake?” Fury asked. Steve shook his head. “Adirondacks. There’s a smaller lake just south of it called Spy Lake. We’re on the south side of that, in the forest. Got a lot of space, set up with magical and physical barriers to keep your average human away.”

Steve nodded and looked out the window. He had so many questions, he couldn’t decide what to ask next. He was too jittery and curious to sleep, so he watched cities and trees go by. They stopped in Albany to use a restroom and get fast food, and when they got back into the car, Steve had decided on a question.

“Do you have any idea what I am already?” 

Natasha looked at him from where she had taken over driving. Fury was leaning against the door in the back, legs stretched across the seat. There was a long pause before Natasha said, “Only very general ideas.”

“Like what?” Steve pressed.

She didn’t answer. Instead she asked, “Has anyone ever put a...spell on you?” There was the tiniest twitch to her eyebrow when she said ‘spell,’ like the word was distasteful.

“No?” Steve thought for a moment. “Not that I remember. And that’s the kind of thing my father would have told me about.”

“What about your mother?”

Steve hesitated, then shrugged. “I never knew her. What do spells have to do with anything?”

Natasha did not miss the change of subject, but she let it slide. “That’s not really the right word. It’s just that something about you feels...chained?” She frowned. “Muted. I need more time to focus and study it before I can say exactly what it is.”

Steve sat back in his seat, disgruntled. “Why do all of your answers leave me with more questions than I started with?”

“Because she doesn’t have the answers yet,” Fury piped in.

Natasha scowled. “Or maybe you’re asking the wrong questions,” she sniffed.

Steve gave her a look, which she ignored. Since he wasn’t going to get any decent answers in the car, Steve watched the road and the signs, thinking about what Natasha had said about him.

Muted, or bound. He didn’t know what that felt like or meant in a magical sense, but her questions made Steve think of the mother he didn’t remember. Everything his father had ever told him was full of praise, even though she had left the two of them alone. Steve had never resented her absence - it was simply a fact of his life, and Joseph had always been so complimentary that Steve had a sort of distant affection for her.

But he didn’t really know her, and Joseph didn’t either, in the end. They hadn’t spent that long together. Who knew what she could have done to Steve in the few months that she had him before leaving him with Joseph? He never would have been able to tell, probably never would have suspected. And Steve couldn’t remember being any different, so how should he know?

Steve shivered and tried to leave the train of thought behind. He didn’t have any real memories of his mother, but there was still happiness when he thought of her. He didn’t want to lose that, to corrupt it with this strange doubt that was mostly unfounded anyway.

Natasha turned on the stereo suddenly, distracting Steve. It was something classical, though Steve didn’t recognize it. Fury did, apparently. In the backseat, he sighed.

“More ballet?”

“Driver picks the music,” Natasha said.

“That’s what you said about riding shotgun.”

“And then I chose jazz, just for you.”

They bickered quietly for a while, then just talked, and Steve let it distract him, watching the car climb into the Adirondacks, the trees getting thicker and closer when they pulled onto a smaller highway. A while later, Natasha turned off onto a narrow gravel drive, and a few miles after that, something that was barely more than a bumpy dirt path. The Suburban handled the bumps and holes easily, and Natasha looked completely comfortable, even when the trees on her side of the car thinned and gave way to what Steve could tell, even in the dark, was a pretty steep drop. He found himself gripping the handle above his door.

“Where are we, exactly?” He asked tightly.

Natasha didn’t even look away from the beam of the headlights. “North side of Pillsbury Lake. We’re pretty deep in here. We’ll be in our territory in just a minute.”

Steve almost questioned the use of the word ‘territory’ but the Suburban hit a pothole and he decided not to distract Natasha anymore.

It turned out he could tell what she meant. A few minutes later, she slowed the car even more, and Steve felt the barely-familiar rush of magic over his skin. Unlike most of the magic he’d experienced, this was electricity across his scalp, shivers down his spine, an enormously more powerful version of the slight tingles he’d encountered before. Steve clenched his teeth.

“You weren’t kidding about those magical wards, huh?” He said once the crackle had faded, leaving goosebumps on his skin.

“Gotta keep the humans out somehow,” Fury said.

“What does it do?” Steve asked.

“Well, if there’s no magic in your blood, it redirects you gently back out, sort of warps the area around you and spits you out someplace harmless. It’s also got a familiarity component, so it recognizes Natasha and I as residents, but not you. Everyone will know you’re here, because it doesn’t know you and will alert them.”

“Everyone?”

“It alerts whoever’s in charge at the time, and the people who set it up, and we decide how to respond. Because they know Natasha and I are here, and we planned on bringing you back, we shouldn’t expect a welcome party.”

Steve nodded. Nerves twisted his stomach the idea of actually meeting people like him - sort of - thrilling and terrifying at once. If the protection spells around the place were anything to go by, these were easily the most powerful people he’d ever met in his life. He eyed Natasha. Had she had anything to do with the wards? What could she do? Could she really help?

Further agonizing was halted as they came around a bend and Steve started to see lights through the trees.

“Electricity?” He asked.

“A little,” Fury said. “Mostly magic.”

It was only another minute before they came into view of the town. The road they were on led straight onto what looked like the main street, lined with closed up shops. The lights along the road were spaced like streetlamps, high up, but there were no poles or wires running between them.

“A little electricity, huh?” Steve asked, rolling down the window and leaning into the cool night air.

“In places,” Natasha said. She turned onto a smaller road. The lamps were farther apart, but after a minute, Steve saw low placards at the side of the road, lit by more magical lights, at the mouths of tree-lined driveways.

“Your place isn’t finished yet,” Natasha said. “So I’m generously allowing you to sleep in my guest room for a couple nights.”

“I - my place?” Steve turned to stare at them both.

“Well, you’ll need a place to live, Rogers,” she said. “You most definitely cannot sleep on my couch forever.”

“But...you’re just giving me a place?” Steve was bewildered.

“Giving is a strong word,” Fury said. “Lending. You can’t trash it. But it’s been empty for a while, so until you decide to leave, or stay long enough it becomes yours. Or you build your own.”

Steve’s head swam a little. He’d never lived in a place for more than two years; building his own house was something he’d never even considered.

“Breathe, kid,” Fury said. Steve tried.

Natasha turned at the placard that bore her name on it. The driveway was long, winding, and lit at intervals with orangey-red lights that matched Natasha’s hair. It was a little eerie, but Steve also thought it suited her.

The house itself was...startlingly average. It was more like a large cottage, wood and stone and a cute little porch swing. That was unexpected, but the porch light was on and there was light inside, and it looked cozy. 

Natasha parked in the large gravel area and got out. All three of them stretched before pulling Steve’s few possessions out of the trunk. Fury helped them get it into the house, then said, “Need anything else?”

Natasha shook her head. “We’re good here. Get some sleep, old man.” 

Fury narrowed his eye at her but didn’t retort. He nodded at Steve once and left them in the foyer.

“Well, the kitchen is over there,” Natasha said. “The bedrooms are upstairs. You can leave that stuff here.” She gestured to Steve’s art supplies and shouldered his backpack. Steve followed her up the stairs with his one suitcase. 

The landing above was open to the little foyer, and Natasha led Steve to the left, pointing out the bathroom and the third bedroom across the hall from the door she opened for him. It was spacious, furnished with a large bed and matching dresser. 

“I’m just down the hall,” Natasha said, pointing. “You’re welcome to anything in the bathroom and kitchen. We’ll go by the place that’s being set up for you tomorrow before we head into town. There are some people you need to meet.”

Steve blew out a deep breath and nodded, unable to meet her eyes. “Thank you, so much. I…” He hesitated. He was pretty sure it wasn’t possible to articulate that no one had taken this much care for him since he was a teenager without making her uncomfortable.

“It’s not a problem, really,” she said. “I promise I’m getting something out of this too, and you’ll be in your own place tomorrow or the next day. Stop feeling guilty.” The sharpness in her voice made Steve look at her finally. It was nearly an order, and the stern but gentle look she was giving him enforced the feeling without making him feel patronized. He smiled.

“Got it. But thank you.”

She rolled her eyes and waved him off, turning away. “Good night, Steve.”

Steve was jittery and nervous and wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep. He got ready for bed anyway, and found that as soon as he laid down, even in the unfamiliar bed, his eyes were closing and he couldn’t even hold onto his anxieties to keep him awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1-Please don't get into the car with total strangers, everyone. Even if they are as pretty as Nick Fury.  
> 2-Spy Lake is a real place and i just couldn't resist  
> 3-Bucky finally shows up next chapter so you have that to look forward to  
> 4-so my [tumblr](http://lisa-in-the-sky.tumblr.com/) is mostly shitposts and marvel, at least one of which i can probably guarantee you're into, and i like to make friends. come say hello


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Shield, Steve Rogers, where everyone is disgustingly beautiful.

Sunlight slanted into the window, heating the blankets on Steve’s legs. When he woke up, his feet and legs were sweaty, tangled in the sheets. It took him a moment to figure out why the sun was landing on his bed - he hadn’t slept that late, had he? - before remembering that he was in a stranger’s house in the middle of the mountains.

Steve sat up slowly. Natasha’s spare room was warm and bright, the walls painted a soft cream, the windowsill and door frame light blue. The color scheme contrasted sharply with Steve’s image of Natasha’s taste, the memory of the eerily lit driveway from the night before still fresh.

The alarm clock on the bedstand said it was just before nine, which didn’t seem too early for Steve to get up. He stretched and put on a shirt before opening the door and looking into the hall. The smell of coffee was already wafting up the stairs, so he followed it to the kitchen.

Natasha was leaning against the kitchen island, eyes heavy lidded over her cup of coffee. A small black cat was perched on her shoulder. She smiled at Steve when he came in and nodded her chin at the pot on the counter.

“Help yourself,” she said. There was already a mug next to it.

“Thanks.” He fixed his coffee and leaned against the opposite counter. “Who’s this?” He smiled at the cat. It blinked slowly at him.

“This is Liho,” Natasha said, rubbing her cheek against it once. “Say hello, Liho.”

“Hello,” the cat said. Steve nearly dropped his coffee. Natasha smiled.

“Oh. Hello.” Steve blinked at it for a moment. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The cat didn’t respond this time. Natasha said, “He’s my familiar.”

“Oh,” Steve said again. There was a very long pause. “That’s, uh, great. I’ve...never met a familiar before?” _I’ve never met a talking cat_ was probably implied, Steve figured.

“Wanda has a raven. Pietro’s is a dog. You’ll meet them today, if you’re feeling up for it.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Steve said, deciding that talking animals were probably not going to be the strangest his life would get. “After coffee. And a shower.”

“Ditto. There are extra towels under the bathroom sink. You hungry?”

Steve shook his head. “After coffee, and a shower.”

Natasha smiled. “We’ll eat in town then. You can have the first shower.”

***

There was a garage next to Natasha’s house that Steve hadn’t seen the night before, and in it lived a large, beautiful black motorcycle.

“No mortar and pestle?” Steve asked, examining the bike.

“How original,” Liho said, giving Steve a very judgemental look.

Steve snickered. Natasha simply rolled her eyes. 

“Not that I’m not jealous - because I really am - but isn’t that a little impractical for winter in the mountains?”

Natasha shrugged. “Yes, but I have good friends, and two feet, and it’s not actually that far to town. We’ll be going a little further around today, though, hopefully, so we’ll take it.”

She wheeled the bike out of the garage and handed Steve the extra helmet. When Natasha mounted the bike, Liho hopped up between her legs, halfway on the engine. Steve blinked but said nothing as he put on his helmet. He felt a little silly getting onto the bike behind Natasha and wrapping his arms around her waist, but decided not to say anything.

They made the short ride into town in silence. It was bigger than Steve had first thought, the main street stretching past the turn to Natasha’s house, and a few other streets extending away from it with more shops. It was still very small, smaller than Steve was used to, and as they rode past on the bike and people turned to wave at Natasha and then stare at Steve, he realized it would be impossible to hide here.

He shouldn’t have to, he reasoned as Natasha parked the bike. Everyone here would know, and they wouldn’t try to force him out because of whatever he was. Still, it was hard to resist the urge to hunch his shoulders and avoid eye contact as they got off the bike.

“We’re gonna make one stop, and then we’ll get breakfast,” Natasha said, leading Steve to one of the stores. Steve glanced in the window as they passed. There were all kinds of bottles and little figures and candle holders on the shelves. The plain, bold lettering on the window read “Maximoff Magic.”

Steve blinked. “A magic shop. In a town full of...magicians.”

Natasha gave him a skeptical look, hand on the doorknob. “Most of us aren’t ‘magicians,’” she said. “But we still have a lot of use for the kind of things Wanda and Pietro sell. It’s not just herbs and crystal balls. That’s all the stuff they sell at the other store.”

“Other store?”

She just gave him the cat smile. “They have to get their stock somehow,” she said, and opened the door.

The interior of the shop was crowded but neat. One wall was covered entirely in shelves with neatly labeled jars in rows, full of everything from flowers to...fur? Steve squinted, but Natasha was already leading him past the jar. The table on Steve’s other side had a set of mixing containers ranging from beakers to cauldrons, in a variety of materials. The next one had candles in different colors and sizes, but none of them were labeled things like “Passion” or “Wealth” and instead said “Beltane” or “Full Moon.”

“Are those eyeballs?” Steve finally asked, jerking his chin at a jar. Natasha didn’t even look.

“Frog eyes, yes.”

“So this is like...a retail shop for actual witches.”

“More or less. But anyone can mix up an elixir,” Natasha said. “So basically everyone in this city can use the things they sell here.”

“I can’t,” Steve said.

“You’d just have to learn,” Natasha told him. “Elixirs just do things like calm the stomach or cleanse a wound. It’s potions that take actual magic - which you could probably also do, but I don’t know what kind of potions you could make.”

“What kind? What do you make?”

“I make poisons and their antidotes, acids, small bombs, potions to alter appearance temporarily or confuse the mind. I don’t know what you are yet, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the kind of magic you have. Wanda should be able to help us unravel the mystery that is Steve Rogers, though.”

Steve nodded, and Natasha led him around another set of shelves, this one covered in heavy books. There was a counter with a register on top and a pale, dark haired girl behind it. She was reading a heavy book and muttering to herself as she counted things on the counter. Natasha stopped in front of her and waited for a moment, then cleared her throat. The girl looked up.

“Hello, Natasha,” she said. “Do you think that I could substitute the--”

“We can talk shop in a minute,” Natasha interrupted. “Wanda, this is Steve Rogers. Steve, this is Wanda the teenage witch.”

Wanda narrowed her eyes a little and Natasha smirked. “That joke wasn’t clever the first time you said it,” Wanda sniffed. She had a bit of an accent, different from Natasha’s, but close. “It’s nice to meet you, Steve. Pietro is in the other shop, he should be back in a moment.”

“Nice to meet you,” Steve said. 

There was a loud croaking noise, and an enormous black bird detached itself from the wall behind Wanda and soared over Steve’s head. He flinched, then realized the croaking was actually the raven calling out to Natasha’s cat. 

“That’s Ezra,” Wanda said. She came out from behind the counter to stand in front of Steve. She wasn’t much taller than Natasha, but she looked much younger, even with all of her dramatic eye makeup. She peered up at him, tilting her head as she looked him over.

“Someone bound his power,” Natasha said. “Can you feel that?”

Wanda nodded. “Yes. It’s old, but it’s not wearing away much.” She reached out a hand towards Steve’s head. “May I?” 

Steve hesitated, but lowered his head for her. He wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, but nothing about her seemed threatening. She placed her palm over Steve’s temple, and he felt a prickle of magic across his scalp. 

“Do you feel anything?” Wanda asked after a minute. 

Steve shrugged. “A little. Like, a tingle.”

Wanda took her hand away a moment later. “Whoever put this on you did a very thorough job, but was an idiot.” She moved over to the bookshelf and scanned the spines. “They trapped all your magic in your head. There’s no outlet, no ability. What should have grown with you your entire life has been stunted.”

“What does that mean?” Steve asked. Wanda gave him a very disturbed look, and Natasha cut in.

“It means that they didn’t think about the repercussions of this binding. Either they were in a rush and didn’t have time to do it better, or they didn’t know. But because of it, you’re not able to access your own power intentionally, which leaves you vulnerable.”

Steve frowned. “Vulnerable to what?”

“People who can sense that power,” Natasha said. “So, most people with any magic of their own. I can, Wanda can. But you have no way to protect yourself from any magical attacks. You should have been able to feel Wanda in your head just now, but the binding has stunted your perception of magic as well as your ability to use it.”

“I felt it when we passed the wards outside town,” Steve said. “And...things, uh, happen to me?” He huffed. “That sounds stupid, but sometimes things that don’t make sense just happen around me, or to me, and they have my whole life.”

“Things like what?” Natasha asked. Wanda had picked out a book and laid it out over the other one on the counter.

“I broke mirrors as a kid, when I got upset or angry. Things I wanted sometimes moved, but that was mostly when I was really young. But I can also grow almost anything. All of my plants and gardens do really well. My neighbors’ do too.”

Wanda hummed without looking up from her book. Natasha nodded and was quiet.

“You’re not a witch,” she said after a minute. “That much I can tell you.”

“How?”

“Intuition,” she said with a shrug. “Besides, if your father was human, then it was either your mother who put the spell on you or someone who hated her. But either way, your mother should have been able to leave you with someone who could help you; she would have known people if she was a witch. We work best in groups.”

“But it’s good you at least noticed the wards,” Wanda added. “I would be very worried for you if you had not. That is very powerful magic.”

A moment later, the curtain behind her opened, and a young man stepped out. He was taller than Wanda, lanky and long legged. The resemblance was clear in their faces, though. There was a Greyhound dog next to him, and it immediately trotted over to where Liho and Ezra were talking, resting it’s chin next to them on the table and joining the conversation. Steve stared.

“Steve, this is Wanda’s brother Pietro,” Natasha said. “Pietro, this is Steve Rogers.”

“We’re going to have to unbind his magic,” Wanda said. Pietro held out a hand to Steve.

“What did you do to get yourself into that kind of binding?” He said after they shook.

Steve shrugged. “Was born, I guess.”

Pietro tilted his head to read over Wanda’s shoulder. “Any ideas yet?”

“A few,” she mumbled. “Everyone go away.”

Pietro rolled his eyes but headed into the back again without comment. Natasha touched Steve’s elbow. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get something to eat.”

“You aren’t going to help?” Steve asked as they left. Liho followed just before the door shut behind them.

“I will when she figures out what we need to do. But ailments of the mind are Wanda’s specialty, not mine. I will add my magic to hers when she needs it, as will Pietro.”

“So what is your specialty?” 

“I find things. Or people. Pepper!” Natasha lifted a hand briefly, drawing the attention of a woman coming towards them with two binders and a laptop in her arms and a cellphone out. She looked up and smiled, even as her eyes flicked to Steve.

“Hello, Natasha. You must be Steve.” She held out a hand without dropping anything she was carrying, or seeming to struggle with it at all, which Steve had no idea how she accomplished.

Steve shook her hand and smiled back. She was beautiful, tall and slim, with a smile that lit up her face. “That’s me.”

“Pepper Potts,” she said. “Welcome to Shield. We’ve been looking forward to having you for a while.”

“Oh. Thank you, it’s a lovely town.”

“Pepper pretty much runs the place with Peggy,” Natasha put in. “We’d drown without them, honestly. Tony would blow the place up.”

Pepper just shrugged. “Nonsense, I’m sure you could handle it.”

Natasha snorted.”I’d be gone in a second if you weren’t here to keep him in check. That man is a menace.”

Pepper laughed. “That’s true. I am glad I ran into you, though.” She reached into the purse over her shoulder and pulled out a set of keys. “These are for you, Steve. You should be able to move into the house this afternoon, the last piece of furniture should be here around noon.”

“Oh,” Steve said again. “Thank you so much. This is...I never would have expected this. Thank you.”

Pepper waved him off. She had a way of speaking and listening that made Steve feel completely at ease, all soft voice and easy smiles as she leaned towards him. “Helping people and creating this community is the reason Shield exists. This is supposed to be a home for people who can’t or don’t have one anywhere else.” She smiled, like she already knew what Steve had gone through, or maybe she had just gone through it all herself. “We’re happy you’re here.”

“I’m glad to be here,” Steve said automatically, and realized that it was already starting to be true.

“I’ve got to get going,” Pepper said. “One more thing - Tony has a phone for you, he may come by your house to drop it off. Tony’s a little…”

“Obnoxious,” Natasha said.

“Abrasive,” Pepper said, giving her a wry look. Natasha shrugged. “Just don’t let him walk all over you, and it’ll be fine.”

“Tell Tony when he’s being obnoxious. Got it.”

Pepper laughed. “Perfect. I’ve got to run, it was great to meet you. I’ll come by today or tomorrow to see what you do with the house, we left it pretty bare for you, and to bring a gift over.” Steve opened his mouth to protest, but she was already hurrying away. “Have fun today!”

“Okay,” he said to her back.

“She’s usually much easier to talk to,” Natasha said. “But it’s always a bit busy when new people come in. And fall means harvesting, so she’s got to keep all of that organized.”

“Harvesting? Who farms?”

“The pack,” Natasha said. “They pretty much do all the farming for all of us, and get anything they need for free.”

“Pack, like...werewolves?”

Natasha hummed. “Yes, werewolves. Too much energy all the time. Farming keeps them occupied.”

Steve wondered if he’d ever get used to people talking so nonchalantly about living with werewolves and magic shops. “I’m guessing it’s rude to just ask people what they are?”

“Yes, generally.” Natasha smiled at him, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

Steve sighed. Natasha was helpful, sort of, but he could already tell that she would keep her cards close to her chest until she really needed them.

They ate lunch at a diner a few blocks away called The Nest. It was staffed by two men, Clint and Sam, and a woman, Sharon, who greeted Natasha with a kiss, leaving the most genuine smile on her face that Steve had seen yet. She was a few inches taller than Natasha, but just compact and solidly built, obvious strength in her movements.

“I’ll be over in a minute,” Sharon said after introducing herself to Steve. “I need to make sure Clint isn’t breaking everything while Sam’s on his break.” As she turned away , Steve caught a glimpse of a pointed ear peeking through her fine golden hair. 

“Is she related to...Ms. Carter?” He took a stab at the name, not sure what to call a woman he had yet to meet.

Natasha smirked at him. “Not all elves are related Steve, god.” He scowled, and she laughed. “But yes. Her niece.”

“Your girlfriend?” Steve asked.

Natasha’s smile widened. She looked very smug. “Yes”

“Congrats.”

Sharon reappeared a few minutes later, with two men at her elbows. “Steve, this is Clint, my useless coworker, and Sam, our lovely boss. Guys, this is Steve.”

“Barnes’ new neighbor?” Clint asked, and Steve suddenly felt very scrutinized. Clint had a black eye and hearing aids tucked into both ears, and there were bandages around his palms. His nose looked like it had been broken several times.

Steve shrugged, and Natasha said, “Yes, Clint.”

Clint whipped his phone out and started to send a text, giving Steve a distracted, “Nice to meet you.” He wandered to the other side of the restaurant, holding his phone up to his ear.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Sorry. Sam Wilson. What can we get you today? First meal is on us.” 

“You don’t have to do that,” Steve mumbled, but he was pretty sure he was going to get the free meal whether he wanted it or not. 

“I want to,” Sam said. “What do you like?”

Steve looked at the large menu in front of him. It was very large, several pages thick, and had a lot of writing crammed on every page. It was a mess.

“Uh...a cheeseburger?”

Natasha snorted, and Sharon elbowed her. “We let Clint write up the menu. His eyesight is twice as good as everyone else, but his handwriting is still shit. Sorry.”

“I just haven’t had the heart to tell him how bad it is,” Sam said. “I’ll be out in a bit.”

“Who is Barnes?” Steve asked.

“He and Clint are buddies,” Sharon explained. “And he’s one of your new neighbors. Sam’s on the other side of you.”

“The great part about living in the woods, though,” Natasha leaned in conspiratorially, and Sharon rolled her eyes like she knew what was coming. “Is that you never have to see your neighbors if you don’t want to.” 

“Why would you move to such a small town if you didn’t want to get to know people?” Steve asked her.

Sharon threw her hands in the air. “See?”

Natasha gave them both a dirty look. “Maybe I like to keep track of everyone around me.”

Sharon sneezed into her elbow and it sounded an awful lot like “paranoid.” Natasha elbowed her in the side. Sharon caught her hand and folded their fingers together on the table.

Sam sat down next to Steve when he brought their food out. “Given him any of the gossip yet, Nat?”

Sam had an easy, gentle grin and warm eyes. He was solidly built, a warm firm line next to Steve, but he was unobtrusive and relaxed, entirely non-threatening. Steve felt strangely at ease with him. His smile revealed gapped teeth and dimples, and his facial hair was perfect. 

Steve was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the attractiveness of the people in Shield.

Natasha shrugged, pulling apart a piece of bread and dipping it in her soup. “I guess.”

Sam rolled his eyes again and turned to Steve. “I am so sorry that she and Fury were the first ones you had to meet. They have no bedside manner to speak of.”

Steve smiled. “I’m starting to get the feeling that everyone here just needs to be told when to stop talking.”

“Met Tony yet?”

“Apparently I’m going to later. Supposed to tell him when he’s being obnoxious.”

Sam laughed. “Well that’ll take about thirty seconds. Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

**

Natasha drove Steve to ‘his’ house after lunch. Clint had not reappeared before they left, but neither Sharon nor Sam seemed to mind. As they walked to Natasha’s bike, Steve had asked her if Sam might let him redo the menu. Natasha smiled and said that as long as it wasn’t out of some sense of obligation, Sam would probably say yes.

Natasha stood back while Steve opened the door and followed him in quietly. The short hallway in front had a bathroom on one side and a bedroom on the other, but led into an open room, where a bar was the only thing that separated the kitchen and living room. There were stairs up to a second floor.

“Well?” Natasha asked as Steve inspected the fireplace. Liho jumped onto one of the stools at the bar and began to rub his face on the back of it.

“It’s great,” Steve said. Everything was freshly cleaned, and the walls were bare wood. It was significantly smaller than Natasha’s house, but felt more like the apartments Steve had lived in his whole life, less overwhelming. He could take care of a place like this, even with two stories. “Really. It’s perfect.”

“Good,” Natasha said. “It’s one of the smaller ones, but I told Pepper and Tony that not everyone needs a goddamn cave system to live in.”

“What’s Tony’s deal, anyway?”

Natasha and Liho both made small scoffing noises. Steve swallowed a laugh. “His father worked with Peggy during the war. Howard’s got a place here but is currently on an Arctic expedition. He’s not actually around here all that often, since he and Tony don’t get along very well.” 

“Tony’s smart, but not as smart as he thinks he is,” Liho put in. His voice was a soft, low rumble, and he was still rubbing his face along the back of the chair. His mouth didn’t exactly form the words he spoke, but they were perfectly clear. “And he’s very lucky that Pepper likes him as much as she does. He’s smart enough to know that, at least.”

Natasha’s phone started ringing as Liho spoke. She checked the caller ID before answering. “Nick?”

She wandered away for a moment, talking quietly into the phone. Steve was about to go look at the second floor when someone knocked on the front door. Steve glanced at Natasha, but she wasn’t paying attention. Well, it was Steve’s house. He should probably do the door answering anyway.

There was a man at the door, and the easy, broad smile he gave Steve when the door opened left him a little breathless.

“Hi,” he said, holding out a hand. “I’m Bucky, your new neighbor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shit this is a long chapter lol whoops i have no idea how to moderate myself  
> also look, it's Bucky! finally!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky Barnes: professional enigma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is mostly fluff honestly, and also very long

Steve shut his mouth so quickly his teeth clicked. He fumbled to let go of the door and shake Bucky’s hand. Steve almost squeezed his eyes closed to make sure Bucky was real, but the hand in his was warm, solid, strong, a very good indicator that the equally solid looking man in front of him was real. 

“Hi. I’m Steve. Rogers. Steve Rogers.” 

Prior to the last 48 hours, Steve had not been aware it was possible for one person to project so much self-assured beauty. He had sort of figured there was a maximum, a limit, and people like models were just...acting. 

Every single person he had met in this town was proving him wrong, and Bucky Barnes was probably going to be the one to tip Steve into hysterics

The artistic part of Steve wanted to draw Bucky, his strong jaw and his dimples and his crinkling eyes. Every other part of him wanted to drag Bucky into his bed and not let him leave for a week.

“Nice to meet you,” Bucky was saying. “I didn’t bring a gift, though. Sorry.”

Steve shook his head. “That’s fine, really. I don’t know if they told you, but they kind of gave me this house.”

Bucky grinned. “Hard to top that. I live that way.” He pointed. “There’s a trail between us. Sam is over there.” He pointed the opposite direction. “But I’m the better neighbor.”

“I don’t know about that,” Steve said. “Sam made me lunch today. You didn’t even get me a blender.”

Bucky’s eyes crinkled up when he laughed and Steve wanted to die a little bit. 

“Blender. I’ll put that on the _list_ of shit I’m gonna get you.”

Steve laughed. Natasha appeared at his elbow, phone still in hand.

“James, perfect. You’re just in time. I need you to take Steve back to my place to get his stuff.”

“James?” Steve asked. Bucky wrinkled his nose and shook his head a little.

“Okay, but why? What’s wrong?”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Nothing’s wrong. Fury needs my help with something, and then I need to check in with Wanda. She thinks she might have something to help Steve.”

Bucky looked between the two of them, opening his mouth to ask more questions. Natasha started to push Steve out the door. “Steve will explain. I need to go. Take Liho, he’ll let you in. Sorry to run off on you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve said. He locked the door behind them. “You don’t have to babysit me all day.”

“Have a good afternoon.” Natasha jumped off the porch and pulled on her helmet, still talking. “Hopefully I’ll have some news for you this evening or tomorrow.”

They waved as she sped away on her bike, and then Bucky turned to Steve. “C’mon, I’ll show you the way to my house. It’s not far.”

Steve followed him off the porch and around the house. There was a little footpath, completely nondescript, leading into the woods. Liho bounded off into the underbrush. 

“Why does Natasha’s cat talk?” Steve asked once they couldn’t see him anymore. 

Bucky laughed. “Witch’s familiars gain sentience when they bond, among other things. They’re extensions of each other. He can probably still hear you, by the way.”

“Damn.”

“He won’t be offended. They both value intelligence above almost anything else, he’ll like that you’re asking questions.” Bucky tipped his head at Steve. “So what’s the coven working on for you?”

Steve sighed. “Apparently someone put a binding on me when I was really young. Natasha thinks it was my mother. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to figure out what I am until she gets the real feeling of my...aura?”

Bucky nodded, a little frown creasing his eyebrows. “Why would your own mother do something like that?”

Steve shrugged. “Don’t know. Never knew her.”

Bucky opened his mouth, then shut it. Steve must have effectively communicated that he didn’t want to talk about it, because all he said was, “We’ll figure it out.”

“You sound so sure,” Steve said. “I’ve been trying to do that my whole life, you know.”

“You never had an entire town trying to help you, didja?” Bucky said. “Believe me, they’re...determined. You’ll get some answers, even if it’s not all of them. Even if it’s not what you’re looking for, exactly.”

Steve nodded, wondering what kind of answers Bucky had gotten, what he’d been looking for. It was too soon to ask, he decided, but they were neighbors. He would see Bucky again. Hopefully a lot, he thought, glancing at the sharp, stubbled line of Bucky’s jaw.

“So, the cool thing about living here,” Bucky said, bringing Steve out of his appreciative staring. “Is that pretty much no matter where you are in town, you’re about five minutes away from the lake. And we’ve got a lot of woods to explore, and because we’re so protected you can do just about anything in them.” Steve raised an eyebrow and started to laugh. Bucky snorted. “That was a weird way to put it, although not inaccurate. I meant fishing and hunting and playing with a werewolf pack, but all the other stuff that crossed your mind works too, you deviant.”

“You’re the one who apparently knows all the weird shit we can get up to in the woods, and I’m the deviant?” Steve taunted.

“You know, when Nat watched you, she called you nice a lot.” Bucky narrowed his eyes. “You’re not nice. You’re a punk.”

“Watched me? What does that mean?”

Bucky shrugged. “It sounds a lot weirder than it is. Everyone here has a job. Natasha’s is to keep an eye out for people who could use the help.”

“So she spies on the world’s more magical citizens?”

“She likes to call it scrying, but yeah, she spies on you. How do you think they knew when to come get you? It’s not really as weird as it sounds. Just like...picking up people’s trails and following it to them. Magic trails.”

“Seems just about as weird as it sounds,” Steve said.

Bucky shrugged. “Gotta get new people somehow, though, right?”

“I don’t actually know. I mean, they kept telling me they wanted to help me, but not why.” He rolled his eyes. “Natasha and Fury, at least, don’t seem like the kind of people who help people out of the goodness of their hearts. Or just because she ‘likes knowing things.’” He sighed. “I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but…”

Another frown creased Bucky’s forehead and he stopped walking, turning to Steve. “They didn’t tell you why they wanted you here?” When Steve just shook his head and shrugged again, Bucky drew in a deep breath. “Fucking--” he huffed. “Jesus, they can be so stupid sometimes.”

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked, instantly wary.

“Fury’s entire job here revolves around keeping this place hidden and safe from the outside. The big ass magical wall around us? His idea. He’s been doing shit like that on a smaller scale for - I don’t even know how long, but something as big and complicated as this one requires a lot of power to maintain, right?” 

Steve just shrugged, and Bucky huffed again. “Trust me, it does. You’ll learn more about that kinda stuff the longer you stick around here. Anyway, Fury’d never be able to power that kind of magic on his own, so he literally draws on everyone in the place to hold it up. The more people - the more magic - there is here, the stronger the protection is. So that’s what we gain out of having you here. Plus whatever else you can do - garden or cook or hunt or whatever. Jesus, I can’t believe they didn’t explain that to you before they asked you to come out here! The hell’s wrong with them, they can’t just - just force you to come here and not explain how they’re using you to--”

“Bucky!” He was really working himself up, Steve thought, and he reached instinctively for Bucky’s shoulders. He hesitated, hands hovering over him. “Bucky, stop. No one forced me to come here. I...didn’t really have many options, but they didn’t point a gun at me or anything. I could have just as easily picked up and moved cities again - I was already planning to. They had good timing, probably because Natasha had been spying on me, right?”

The joke fell a little flat, Bucky’s face remaining stormy, but his shoulders dropped. “It’s still - they know they shouldn’t pull shit like that on people.”

“Well, yeah,” Steve said. “And I’ll say something to them about it, but ‘full disclosure’ started to got overwhelming pretty quick. They didn’t know what to tell me first, and I didn’t know what to ask first.”

That was only partially true. Steve had asked a few times why they wanted him to come with them so badly, without getting a clear answer. But Bucky was so distressed at the idea that they were using Steve without his knowledge, it seemed like a harmless lie to tell him that it was partially on Steve.

Bucky, for his part, only looked slightly assuaged. “Well. I’m still going to be having a talk with them.”

Steve smiled. “Me too. Thanks for looking out for me.”

Bucky finally smiled back. “I wouldn’t be the best neighbor if I didn’t have your back, would I?”

The rest of the short walk to Bucky’s house was a little tense. When they finally cleared the woods in front of the house, Liho was waiting for them on the hood of the jeep parked outside. 

Bucky gave the cat a slightly dirty look, and Liho made a strange movement, which Steve realized was a shrug. 

“I wasn’t there,” he said. “But for the record, I would have remembered to tell you about the magic-stealing wall.”

Bucky scowled and pressed the fob in his hand. The car alarm began to blare, and the cat leapt into the air and off the car. Bucky turned it off, looking viciously pleased. Liho gave him a reproachful look and sat down on the grass calmly as though nothing had happened.

“It doesn’t exactly steal magic,” Bucky said as he went to the driver’s door. He unlocked the car this time. “I don’t know the exact way it works, really.”

Steve got into the passenger seat, and Liho jumped onto his lap. Steve startled, but Liho just settled in across his thighs, and started to explain the magic that kept the city safe.

“It’s set up to draw - very gently - on the power of the people within it’s boundaries,” he said as Steve shut his door and Bucky started the car. “The more people there are, the less of a drain it is on any single person. As you said, no one person would be able to maintain it on their own - even if it didn’t kill them, they would never be able to use their magic for anything else.”

“Fury told me that it recognizes the people who live here,” Steve said.

“Yes, because it recognizes the power that it gets from them. Everyone here has put a little bit in, in some way or another.” 

Steve raised an eyebrow. “What, like a blood sacrifice?”

Liho made a scoffing noise. “Tacky. But in some cases, true. Not necessary, though. It can be anything, it just has to be willingly given.”

Steve looked at Bucky. “What did you give them?”

Bucky shrugged and didn’t look at him. “Magic.”

Steve frowned. “Well, yeah, but--”

“James simply sacrificed a portion of his own raw power to them,” Liho cut in smoothly. “It’s not really about what you give, so much as the intent behind it. Well, it helps if the thing you sacrifice has meaning to you, but before James got here--”

“Enough,” Bucky growled. “You talk too much, cat.”

Liho’s tail twitched, but he fell silent. Bucky clearly didn’t want to discuss “before” so Steve let it go. Silence settled in the car, thick and awkward.

Finally, Steve asked, “So, James?”

Bucky breathed out and rolled his eyes. “My full name is James Buchanan Barnes. Natasha thinks ‘Bucky’ is too juvenile and refuses to use it.”

“It is juvenile,” Liho said.

“Shut up,” Bucky said.

“James Buchanan?” Steve asked. “Wasn’t he a president?”

Bucky sighed and dropped his head momentarily. “Yes, he was a president. Yes, he was kind of a bad president. No, I’m not actually named after him. My grandfather was Buchanan and my uncle was James, and his son went by Jim, so I became Bucky. I was really young, okay, I didn’t know any better.”

Steve laughed. “I like it. Bucky. It’s cute.”

Bucky stuck his tongue out at Steve, and Liho muttered, “Juvenile.”

The rest of the ride passed with ease, and Liho didn’t attempt to spill any more of Bucky’s past. Steve filed the information away for later, and let himself relax into surprisingly easy banter, and maybe stare at Bucky a little. 

At Natasha’s house, Liho trotted around the porch and out of sight while Steve and Bucky waited at the front door. A few minutes later, the door inexplicably opened for them, Liho already walking away from it with his tail high.

“Uh.” Steve squinted at him. “How did he do that?”

Bucky just shrugged. “I don’t ask.”

They retrieved Steve’s belongings from the bedroom and foyer. As they piled them into the truck, Bucky asked, “Do you need anything before we head back? From town or anything?”

Steve thought for a minute. “I guess I should stock my kitchen? But I’m not sure I’m really up for that right now.”

Bucky nodded. “I could drive you tomorrow if you want to get settled in now? It’s not a problem.”

Spending more time with Bucky sounded like an excellent idea, and the fact that he was the one offering made Steve’s heart skip a little. He told himself Bucky was just being neighborly and to relax. 

“Thanks. That’d be great. I can walk over in the morning.”

“I’ll have coffee,” Bucky said. “Since you don’t have any, and I’m your best neighbor.”

“You know, Sam would probably make me breakfast…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm pretty sure Sam and Bucky are competing for "best neighbor to all of Shield" which probably results in a lot of free meals on Sam's part


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ah,” Steve said. “Candles. Going to do some real magic now.”

Natasha didn’t call that night with any updates, but Tony - whoever he was - never showed up with a phone for Steve anyway. Steve decided not to worry about it and to enjoy being almost unreachable for a few hours. 

He unpacked his suitcase, hung up a piece of art, and explored the little house. There was a note on the fridge he hadn’t noticed before, in neat cursive.

_Steve -_

_Didn’t know if you would go shopping today, so Peggy and I sent some leftovers. Enjoy! Talk soon._

_-Pepper_

Steve stared at it, then opened the fridge. There was two small tupperwares sitting on the shelf - the only thing in the fridge - and Steve made a mental note to ask someone what kind of mayor (or whatever Peggy was) had time to send her new citizens leftovers.

He ate the food, which appeared to be separated into meat and non-meat - seriously, who were these women? - and then went outside to explore his yard. There was a sizeable patio in the back, and the ‘yard’ ran right into the forest, mossy grass soft and damp under Steve’s shoes. He went to the edge of the trees and stood for some time, breathing in the clean scent of forest. 

It was strange, to be someplace so quiet and clear when only 48 hours ago he’d been in a tiny apartment in the middle of Brooklyn, hot and noisy and cramped. Steve had grown up in the city, had lived in several others since his father died, and he loved it. He’d always be a city boy at heart, he knew, but it was a nice change.

By the time Steve went back inside, the sun was setting. He settled on the couch in the upper story loft, shocked to find that the TV had cable. He fell asleep on the couch with the TV on.

The next morning he made his way over to Bucky’s house fairly early, hungry and craving coffee. It took Bucky a moment to answer the door, but when he did he smiled brightly, ushering Steve into the kitchen.

“Breakfast? Coffee?”

“Yes to both,” Steve said emphatically. “Do you want help?”

“Nah, just have a seat.” Bucky gestured to a sunny breakfast nook next to the kitchen. “Heard from Nat?” He went into the kitchen and poured Steve a cup of coffee, then began rooting through the fridge.

“No. Tony was supposed to bring me a phone? But he never showed up. And Natasha didn’t come by.”

Bucky snorted, pulling eggs and cheese out and flipping on the stove. “Tony’s probably not even aware of what day it is. He’s been cooking something up in his lab for days.”

“Pepper said she told him,” Steve said.

Bucky scoffed again. “He’s probably forgotten, then, just like he’s forgotten to eat and sleep.” He shook his head. “We can go by his place today.”

“What does he do, exactly?” Steve asked.

“He’s a djinn,” Bucky said, cracking a few eggs into a bowl. He apparently had none of Natasha’s compunctions about spilling all the dirt on his neighbors. “And he’s a scientist. So he does a lot of really weird, crazy experiments that involve combining magic and technology. Sometimes they’re great, and we get really cool gadgets like cell phones that run on on a magical server and have a really long battery life, and sometimes they blow up in his face. Literally.”

Steve laughed. “Sounds exciting.”

“It is,” Bucky said. “I work with him sometimes, but he gets a little crazy and sleeps on lab tables using wrenches as pillows, and I am just not about that life.”

“Gee, I wonder why.”

“Anyway, we can go by his place while we’re out, and Wanda’s, see what she and Natasha have cooked up for you. They’re probably getting a little obsessed too.”

Steve nodded. “So I know why Fury wants me here, what about Natasha?”

Bucky started pulling out plates. “At this point, she’s genuinely curious about the mystery that is you. This binding, whatever you are, all of it. She loves knowing things, and people. And she likes to keep powerful people close to her.”

“How does she know I’m powerful at all?” Steve asked. “What with this binding, and not knowing what I am or what I can do. What if I’m a huge disappointment?” He laughed when he said it, but the fear that he wouldn’t be good enough for their magical club house was suddenly very real.

Bucky shook his head. “Whatever you are, Steve, it’s not gonna be disappointing. If Natasha could find you based on what amounts to a magical scent trail even through the bind, you’re pretty powerful. And no matter what you are, it’ll be good to have you around.”

The look on Bucky’s face was so sincere, Steve suddenly thought that Bucky seemed to be speaking for himself as much as he was for Natasha. Steve grinned, feeling his cheeks get a little warm.

“Thanks,” he mumbled to his coffee.

***

They decided the first stop should be Tony’s house, mostly because Bucky’s warning about him had them both worried for his sanity. 

He lived down the same stretch of road as Natasha, a few driveways past her. The house was normal from the outside, if a little more modern and significantly larger than the Steve’s rustic cabin or Natasha’s cottage. Bucky didn’t bother knocking, just opened the door and went straight in, yelling, “Jarvis!”

“Who’s Jarvis?” 

“Mr. Barnes, a pleasure as always.” The soft, accented voice came from no source Steve could see, and he jumped a little. “I see you’ve brought our newest resident. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Rogers.”

Steve stared at Bucky, alarmed. “Nice to meet you too?”

“Jarvis is Tony’s house-ghost,” Bucky said. “He’s been with the Starks for several decades, and I guess he couldn’t escape even when he died.”

“An inescapable side effect around so much magic and science, I’ve been informed,” Jarvis said. “But not without it’s perks.”

“He basically is the house,” Bucky explained, leading Steve down the hallway. “Like...he can do anything. Which means he can bring us water and control all of Tony’s robots - or he can throw glasses at our heads, and control all of Tony’s robots.”

“Even more exciting than I thought,” Steve said. “It’s nice to meet you, Jarvis. You’re a lovely house.”

Bucky snorted with laughter, a hand flying over his mouth. 

“Thank you, sir,” Jarvis said drily. “I’ve been told that the lines of my eaves were built at a most flattering angle.”

Bucky seemed unable to contain his laughter at this, cackling in delight and nudging Steve. “He likes you,” he said. He stopped at a doorway and asked, still laughing. “Is Tony in the lab?”

“I’m afraid Mr. Stark hasn’t left it since the day before yesterday,” Jarvis said, although he didn’t sound particularly concerned to Steve. Mostly annoyed. “Miss Potts came by yesterday morning, but he’s been ignoring my reminders on all appointments.”

Bucky sighed. “We’ll drag him out of there. When’s their next date?”

“Tonight, sir. If you were able to put Mr. Stark in his bed before you leave, I’m sure both he and Miss Potts would appreciate it. Watch your step in the lab.”

The door opened on it’s own, revealing a staircase heading down into a basement. It was well lit, but Steve and Bucky exchanged a look.

“You know that doesn’t get any less creepy the more you do it, Jarvis,” Bucky muttered.

“I’m aware, sir.” The ghost sounded pleased.

Steve laughed and followed Bucky down the stairs. Tony’s lab was a basement, one room the size of the entire house. There were areas separated by glass and steel walls, and dozens of metal tables and shelves scattered through the room. Every available surface - floor, tables, shelves - was littered with pieces of metal, trash, a few plants, beakers, and a lot of stuff Steve couldn’t name. Huge metal instruments were dotted here and there, blocking Steve’s view of the whole room, but it appeared empty of people.

“Tony?” Bucky called. When there was no answer, he sighed and led Steve towards the back, picking his way through carefully. They rounded a machine and Steve saw that in the far corner there was a small kitchenette and a couch with it’s back to them.

“Tony!” Bucky rounded the couch and leaned over it, shaking the person lying there. He woke with a snort and a small yelp, sitting straight up and almost colliding heads with Bucky.

“Barnes!” Tony blinked at him several times. His narrow features were covered in at least two days of stubble, and the skin under his eyes was noticeably purple, even against his dark skin. His eyes were bloodshot. “What have I told you about disturbing genius?”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Tony, you were asleep. On the couch. And while I firmly believe that all genius needs sleep, I also believe it should be done in your bed, preferably every night for at least 6 hours.”

Tony looked around. “I was not sleeping,” he said, accusatory, and then caught sight of Steve. “Intruder!” He tried to get up, flailed a little, and then levered himself around Bucky, clutching his shoulders.

Bucky rolled his eyes and sighed. “I’m so sorry,” he said to Steve. “Tony, this is Steve Rogers. The new guy? Pepper told you about him yesterday. You’re supposed to have his phone.”

There was a pause, and then Tony let go of Bucky nonchalantly, coming around him and the couch with a hand up.

“Of course. I know that. Tony Stark, resident magical-mechanical engineering genius.” Steve took his hand, trying hard not to laugh. “Whoa there, buddy,” Tony said. He stopped shaking Steve’s hand but didn’t let go, instead bringing his other up to hold Steve. “Somebody did a number on you, didn’t they?”

“That’s what they tell me,” Steve said. “Natasha and Wanda are working on it.”

“And they didn’t invite me?” Tony gasped. “They--”

“Have it handled, Tony,” Bucky cut in. “If they need you, I’m sure they’ll call. But you need to give us Steve’s phone and get some sleep, dude.”

“Sleep is overrated,” Tony declared, dropping Steve’s hand and heading into the lab. He wound his way through the clutter and stopped at a table covered in extremely tiny screwdrivers and...other things. “What do you do, big guy?” He glanced at Steve and began digging around on the table.

“I’m an artist,” Steve said. 

“Oh that’s nice,” Tony said. “Pepper loves art.” His hands hesitated for just a moment as his eyes widened. He continued rooting around and called casually, “What day is it, J?”

“Friday, sir,” Jarvis said. “It’s 10:18 AM. You have a date with Miss Potts in Manhattan in 8 hours and 42 minutes.”

“Oh, no worries then,” Tony said brightly, and continued to mess with something on the table. “Okay, I have it here,” he said. Bucky and Steve approached the work table. Tony had a slim rectangle of glass in his hand and was fiddling with a tiny screwdriver. 

“It looks...fragile,” Steve said, thinking of his own much larger hands.

“It’s actually a reinforced plexiglass and plastic,” Tony said. “Barnes, show him yours.”

Bucky gave a small sigh and pulled his phone out of his pocket to show Steve. “They’re pretty durable,” he explained. He smacked it sharply on the edge of the table. Steve winced but nothing happened. 

“Not your average iPhone,” Tony said smugly. He dropped the screwdriver back onto the table and pressed a nearly invisible button on the side of the phone and handed it to Steve. “Here you go, Mr. Rogers,” he said, and giggled. Steve rolled his eyes. “Your very own brand new Stark phone.”

“Thanks,” Steve said, grinning at the little stylized image of a lamp as the phone turned on.

“Thanks, Tony,” Bucky said. “Now go upstairs and go the fuck to sleep. I can help Steve set it up.”

Tony huffed but followed them upstairs and to the door. “Be seeing you around, I’m sure,” he said.

In Bucky’s car, still fiddling with the phone, Steve asked, “How is he going to get to Manhattan in time for his date?”

“The Maximoff’s shop,” Bucky said. “There’s, uh, another one. In Queens. And they’re connected. Via portal. The curtain behind the counter? It’s not just stock back there.”

Steve started at him. “I keep feeling like you should be joking when you say stuff like that - ‘oh yeah the house is controlled by a ghost,’ ‘your new cell phone runs on magic’ - but you’re completely serious. It’s kind of throwing me off.”

Bucky laughed. “Yeah, that’s about right. You get used to it, I promise.”

“It’s making a me a little crazy,” Steve started, then stopped.

“What is?” Bucky asked after a moment.

“I guess it’s the not knowing anything about myself,” Steve said. “Like, I don’t know anything, about anything or anyone here, and it’s weird and new, and then I remember that I don’t even know anything about myself and…” He huffed.

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “I know what you mean.”

Steve looked up at him, but Bucky was very carefully watching the road ahead of him. His brow was furrowed, though, so Steve waited for him to speak.

“Some...when I was young, some really crazy shit happened to me and I was raised by some really shitty people,” Bucky said. “I got away from them a few years ago and when Natasha and Nick found me I was in a similar place as you. I had been trained to control what I am and what I can do, but...never in a way that was constructive. I was scared and mistrustful and, frankly, a danger to myself and everyone around me.”

“Bucky, you don’t have to tell me anything,” Steve said.

Bucky smiled weakly. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell you anything to scare you off just yet. All I’m trying to say is that there are a lot of really powerful, knowledgeable people here and they want to help you. So don’t worry. You’ll get some answers.”

Once again, Steve was left with about six more questions than he’d started with, but they were all personal and prying and Bucky had made it clear he didn’t want to get into more detail. At least not yet.

“Well,” Steve said after a moment, looking straight at Bucky. “I trust you.”

Bucky glanced over at him, and then back to the road. He was silent for a long time.

“Good,” he said finally. “I’m glad.”

***

They walked the two blocks to the magic shop and found it closed, the door locked and the lights off. Bucky frowned and led Steve down the alley between the buildings to a side door. He knocked, calling, “Nat? Wanda?”

There was a very long pause, and then the door was opened by Pietro. He looked exhausted.

“Steve, Bucky. It’s good you came. Natasha and Wanda have been up almost all night, I swear. Perhaps you can pull them out of their research for a moment to eat.”

“Doubtful,” Bucky grumbled, following him inside. “No one in this city knows how to take a break.”

Pietro just laughed tiredly and led them up a set of dimly lit stairs to an attic. The edges of the room were crowded with tables and shelves, covered in all sorts of magical paraphernalia. The center of the room, though, was perfectly clear except for a small pile of supplies. Natasha and Wanda were on opposite sides of the room, gathering and carefully measuring things.

“How’s it going up here?” Bucky asked warily.

Neither woman even looked up. “We’re almost ready,” Natasha said. “Hopefully.”

Steve and Bucky exchanged a look. Pietro stepped into the room and picked up a piece of white chalk. He started to draw a circle in the center of the room, then surrounded it with several larger circles that overlapped.

“Hopefully?” Steve repeated. “Also, when were you planning on telling me?”

“It should work,” Wanda said, ignoring the second question. “But I have never seen a binding like this before, so I won’t know until we try.”

“Great,” Bucky muttered. “Untested, unknown magic flying through the brain. Perfect.”

“No one said it’s untested,” Natasha said. “I’ve worked with things like this before, just not quite so extensive. And it’s not exactly my area of expertise. But--” she turned and brought something into the center circle, then faced them-- “between the three of us, we worked it out.”

Bucky looked like he was about to protest, but Steve stopped him. “It’s not like they can test it on someone else, right? Is it dangerous?”

The witches in the room hesitated, glancing at each other. Finally, Pietro said, “Most likely, no. It’s been on you so long, either it will break easily and you will be whole again, or it will not, and we will have to do the spell multiple times. Sort of like untying multiple knots from around your mind.” He finished a circle on the floor and straightened. “Or, it will break your mind completely and you will die, or become a vegetable and wish you were dead.”

There was a very long pause.

“But that’s very unlikely,” Pietro said.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Bucky said.

***

Steve and Bucky sat on the curb outside the shop in the mid-morning sun, smoking a cigarette. Bucky was still scowling about the possibility that Steve could end up brain dead or catatonic, but as Steve had told him, their options were limited and he’d rather take the chance than remain stunted his whole life.

Bucky had called them all fucking idiots, _especially you, Steve,_ but had finally given up on the argument.

“You know, I feel a little guilty, smoking this,” Steve said, waving his cigarette.

“Why?” Bucky grunted.

“I had pretty bad asthma as a kid,” Steve said. “Pretty bad everything, actually. I was really small and sick as a baby. Got a lot better as I got older. It was like every year a different illness just...went away.”

Bucky hummed. “Binding like that, probably had a physical effect on you. Maybe as you got older, it weakened, and your body got stronger without it.”

“More than likely.” Pietro had appeared on the sidewalk behind them, making them both jump. “From what I can tell - and just looking at you - most of the physical bonds were the first to go. Whoever did this wanted to hold your magic most of all, but it seems like they didn’t really know how. Or they were in a hurry and messed it up. It is not a neat spell, just powerful.”

Steve sighed. “Do you know what it will be like when it’s...gone?”

Pietro shrugged. “Not really. I cannot tell you from experience, or even through other’s anecdotes. I have never lived without access to my magic. It’s as much a part of me as my hands or my feet.”

Steve looked at Bucky, who wrinkled his nose up. “Same. The only example I could give you is this body, but that’s not really analogous either, I don’t think.”

“What does that mean?”

Bucky gave him a slightly sardonic look, sighed, and looked away. Pietro said, “We’ll be ready in a few minutes,” and slipped back inside.

“Bucky?” Steve asked. Bucky was staring at the ground between his boots with his lips pursed. Steve could see the tension in his shoulders, and he wanted to know what Bucky meant, wanted to know everything about him, but not when it put such a pained look on his face. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“I don’t always look like this,” Bucky said. “It’s a glamour, sort of. Well. It’s a body, that I have, but it’s not the body I always have?” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face and through his hair. Steve waited.

“I’m half-demon,” he said in a rush. “So, I have this form, my human form, and a demon form. And I can switch between them, but I grew up on a demon plane, and it feels more natural to me. But it’s not like not having it there, when I’m like this, and I can still do pretty much all of the stuff I can do as a demon, so it isn’t really the same thing.”

He didn’t look at Steve throughout the whole speech, which was probably for the best, because most of it went straight over Steve’s head. He could probably have seen Steve getting more and more confused the longer he talked. Steve could feel his mouth hanging open slightly, but couldn’t even bring himself to close it while he tried to process all of that.

Half-demon. Two bodies? Demon _plane?_

“Huh.”

Bucky finally looked at him, shy at first, then raised an eyebrow. “Stevie? You with me?”

“Demon plane?” Steve looked at him, tilting his head.

They blinked at each other for a moment, and then Bucky laughed. “Jesus, Steve. It’s not, like, an airplane it’s - Jesus.”

“How can a demon say Jesus?” Steve asked. There were so many more important questions to ask he couldn’t even think of them, so he went with that. It had the added bonus of making Bucky laugh harder, so it wasn’t necessarily a bad question.

“I dunno anything about Jesus,” Bucky said. “But where I’m from, he ain’t even a character in a book. C’mon.” He stood up and held a hand out to Steve. “Let’s go do some dangerous experimental magic on you, and then I’ll explain to you all about planes and demons and how I’ve never met Satan.”

“This sucks,” Steve grumbled, letting himself be pulled up. “I’m 23 years behind everyone else here. It’s like the more I learn the less I know.”

Bucky patted him on the back consolingly. “Don’t worry, buddy. I’ve got all the answers you could need.”

Steve gave him a skeptical look, and Bucky laughed again, pulling Steve back up the stairs.

The lights in the attic had been turned off, leaving only candles illuminating the room from where they’d been set in the interlocking circles. There were nine of them, three red, three purple, and three yellow, and the flickering light they cast illuminated the circle sitting inside them. Natasha, Wanda, and Pietro were standing outside the circles, spaced evenly around them.

“Ah,” Steve said. “Candles. Going to do some real magic now.”

Bucky snorted and started to laugh again, while all three of the witches gave him unimpressed looks.

“Hilarious,” Wanda said.

“Just go let Pietro draw on your chest, Rogers,” Natasha grumbled, waving a hand to where Pietro was waiting with a wooden bowl and a raised eyebrow. Steve raised his eyebrow back, and stepped up to Pietro.

“Shirt off,” he said briskly. Steve hesitated, then pulled his t-shirt off. Pietro jerked his head away from the circle, so Steve twirled the shirt twice and tossed it to Bucky. He caught it and laughed, then whistled lowly. Steve blushed, grinning, and Pietro rolled his eyes before dipping his fingers into the bowl and leaning forward to start drawing on Steve’s chest.

The substance in the bowl was smooth and warm, the same purple as the pillar candle Pietro was standing by. He drew intricate, seemingly random designs over Steve’s chest with firm, confident strokes, then instructed him to turn around so he could put more on Steve’s shoulder blades.

“What is this?” Steve asked finally. He wasn’t sure he’d get an answer, but Natasha spoke up.

“Pietro’s specialty is physical magic, so he’s focusing on undoing those parts of the bind. That stuff is for focusing his power on your body. Mine is for your magic, Wanda’s is your mind. This focuses our magic, and will help protect you, hopefully.”

Steve didn’t really understand fully, but Pietro had pushed him towards Natasha, who started to draw along his shoulders and neck. When she finished, he stepped over to Wanda, who drew lightly on his face, touched both eyelids gently, and sent him to stand in the center circle.

“This might...prickle,” Wanda said. “You will certainly feel something.”

Steve looked at her, then over Pietro’s shoulder at Bucky standing in the doorway. He was holding his left bicep tightly. He offered Steve a smile when their eyes met, and Steve felt slightly reassured. 

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

All three of them nodded, and took a deep breath, and Steve felt magic begin to crawl up his body. It passed in a light tickle over his legs and stomach, and slowed when it reached Pietro’s drawings on his chest. There was a sort of pressing sensation, like the magic was sinking through the marks and into Steve’s skin, while still making it’s way upward. It went from a soft prickling feeling to a dense pressure, and then heat, warming his chest, shoulders, neck, face. He was vaguely aware of Natasha, Wanda, and Pietro speaking quietly around him, but the heat in his body was getting to be painful, distracting. The marks began to burn like brands and Steve shifted, grunting. He could feel sweat breaking on his skin, a whine escaped his lips, and still the pressure and the heat grew, now all over, impossible to escape. 

Steve had no idea when he’d shut his eyes, but he could still see bright, swirling lights behind his eyelids. He didn’t know if it was from pain or the magic pressing on and around him. It didn’t matter. His legs gave out beneath him, and he fell to hands and knees, trying to focus on the sharp pain in his knees instead of the blinding, back-bowing pain drilling into his head. He couldn’t hear the witches’ quiet incantations anymore, and it took a moment to realize it was because he was shouting, shoulders hunched and back arched, entire body tight against the immense pain and heat.

It didn’t stop abruptly, but faded so slowly that it took a long time for Steve to even notice. He was still in pain, just less pain. He gradually became aware of the wooden floor under his shoulder, the tacky feel of sweat drying on his skin. There was no light behind his eyes anymore, and he cracked them open. All of the candles in the circle were out, burned down to stubs, and Nat, Wanda and Pietro were moving about the edges of the room, lighting plain ones in candle holders. Bucky was lying on the floor next to Steve, face lined with concern.

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky said. He smiled when Steve met his eyes, looking relieved. “You alright?”

Steve opened his mouth to say something. His tongue felt like it was wrapped in cotton. His throat hurt. He huffed out a small groan. Bucky laughed softly.

“That’s alright, you don’t gotta talk yet. Here, sit up and drink some water.” He pushed himself up, then wrapped his arms around Steve and levered him to sitting. Steve’s whole body was sore, like he’d been working for days without rest. Bucky kept an arm around his waist and twisted the cap off a water bottle for Steve with the other. Steve tried to take it, but his hands were shaking and he could barely grip the bottle, so Bucky steadied it for him while he drank.

“Better?” Bucky asked when Steve had finished the bottle.

Steve nodded and took a deep breath. It scraped over his raw throat, and just the expansion of his chest had his muscles aching. The attic was cool, setting him to shivering under the sweat. He pressed unconsciously closer to Bucky’s warmth, and felt something else, something completely new, stir in his mind.

He looked around, blinking. The candle light was low, but he found he could see all of them perfectly clearly, and then some. There was a pulsing purple glow around Natasha, steady and strong, like an outline. It followed where she moved, a burning aftereffect that faded slowly from the air.

Wanda’s was just as strong, but twisted and curled around her, bright red and sparking out. It leapt when she moved, and as she passed Pietro, it reached out and twined with the soft, deep blue that surrounded him, mingling gently for just a moment. Pietro’s aura was more like a thrum, a wavering line that hovered around him, like a plucked string.

Steve watched them for a long time, then turned to Bucky. He was haloed in shiny silver, and it seemed to dance around him, constantly moving, but with an easy rhythm where Wanda’s was jumpy and unpredictable. Steve stared at Bucky, mesmerized, then lifted a hand and looked at himself.

He was sort of gold, but it was harder to make out around himself. He frowned, turning the hand over, and dropped his hand to his lap, too tired to look and wonder more.

“How are you feeling?” Bucky asked. His arm was still wrapped around Steve’s waist, and Steve was too tired to even feel uncomfortable. His whole body hurt and he was exhausted and he really, really wanted a steak.

“Hungry,” he decided, voice scratchy.

Bucky laughed softly and it rumbled through his chest and throat where Steve was pressed against him. Steve thought deliriously that he might never eat again if he could just stay right here with Bucky.

“Yeah I bet. Jesus, Steve, you should--” he stopped himself and huffed another laugh. “You’re something else. Donno what yet, but man.”

“Whassa matter?”

“Nothin’ at all. You’re - it worked. And you’re whole, and I can feel you, all of you, and it’s something else. Never seen anything like it.”

Steve shifted to look at him, finding the awe in his voice reflected in his eyes. Steve felt heat - a good kind this time - running through him under Bucky’s eyes. He was definitely too tired to do anything about it, but not too tired to feel that that was a damn shame.

“Me neither,” Natasha cut in, coming to kneel next to them and completely ruining the moment. Steve huffed and looked at her. She was smirking a little like she knew exactly what had just happened, but sobered quickly. “I hate to say it, but even with a clear feel of your magic, I can’t tell what you are.” Her lips pursed. “I’ll have to do some more digging. I’ve got some contacts I can talk to. In the meantime, you need to eat and sleep. Tomorrow you can start playing, and learning what you can do.”

Steve groaned a little. That was definitely too much to handle right now. Natasha laughed and ducked forward to pull one of Steve’s arms over her shoulders. Bucky took the other and they hauled him upright. 

“You know, Nat,” Bucky said as they dragged Steve down the stairs. “You might want to look into other planes. Like me, or Pepper. I mean, he’s not a demon, or a dragon, but his magic has that extra-planar feel, you know?”

Natasha hummed, and Steve felt her magic rush along his skin. “I see what you mean. I’ll keep it in mind.”

Steve protested weakly as they pulled him down the stairs, but his feet didn’t want to obey him, and in the end he whined all the way through a piggyback ride to the car while quietly appreciating how good Bucky smelled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look at all that magic!  
> Jarvis the house ghost is probably the most clever thing i'll ever come up with, honestly  
> also, yes, i race-bent the Starks because djinn are definitely Middle Eastern and also because there are enough white people in marvel anyway  
> THERE IS ART NOW! Go look at [this beautiful art by Kaitlin](http://k-partist.tumblr.com/post/150708118214/more-stucky-big-bang-ciela-lisa-in-the-sky) of the magic happening!! (What a shitty pun I'm so sorry)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grumpy Bucky! Sexual tension! Zero Chill Rogers! Fairies!

When Steve woke up the next morning, he went from asleep to awake with nothing in between. As soon as he opened his eyes, he felt like he could get up and be ready for the day without any dawdling.

This was strange for a few reasons. Steve had never been much of a morning person, usually needing at least one cup of coffee and ten minutes of silence before he could do anything like conversation or normal human thought. 

And he could still remember the day before perfectly clearly. All of the memories were tinged with exhaustion and what felt like drunkenness, but were perfectly clear. He knew exactly what he’d felt and said. He had a very clear memory of being almost unable to keep himself upright at the kitchen table while Bucky fed him soup and Steve giggled like a drunk eight year old.

At that thought, it would have been nicer to not remember anything, but even so, Steve would have expected some kind of fatigue, or a headache - the magical equivalent of a hangover, maybe. But he felt rested, awake, and perfectly healthy so he shifted himself out of the bed and stretched. He wasn’t even stiff.

Steve grabbed his phone off the bedside table where he had plugged it in the day before. It was only 7:30, but there was a text from Bucky the night before saying to get in touch when he was awake, and one from Natasha asking how he was doing.

Puzzled, Steve checked his contacts list on his way into the bathroom and found it complete with what he assumed were the other residents of Shield. A little weird, but convenient, and honestly not any stranger than anything else the people here had done for him.

Instead of getting in the shower, Steve pulled on running gear and headphones. Rested and healthy, Steve realized, didn’t even cover it. He felt downright energetic as he put headphones in and took off at a jog into the woods towards Bucky’s house.

Bucky was not a morning person. Steve could hear him stumbling down the hall, and he stood in the door in just his boxers and stared blearily at Steve for a long moment before grunting.

“Hi,” Steve said, jogging in place. “Wanna go for a run?”

Bucky leaned heavily on the door and yawned. “What time is it?” The words ran together and he scratched his bare stomach, distracting Steve for a moment.

“Seven thirty?”

“What is wrong with you?” There was no venom behind the words, just confusion and a bit of a whine. Steve laughed.

“Nothing. I feel great. It’s amazing. Take a run with me.” 

Bucky groaned. “Fuck no. I don’t do exercise before coffee.” He started to close the door. “I’m gonna go pass out on the couch. Bye Steve.”

Steve laughed, a bit incredulous, but he honestly felt too good to even be upset. He could spend time with Bucky later, he wouldn’t be any fun right then anyway. So Steve jumped off the porch and headed back through the woods towards his house. Bucky had told him he was only a few minutes away from the lake, and waved vaguely away from Steve’s house, so he found another little footpath and followed it.

The path wound through the woods, easy and level. Steve jogged along slowly at first, but found himself picking up his pace until he was outright running along the path. He didn’t stop to even be shocked by his own ability - Steve had started working out once he’d begun growing and the asthma and everything had cleared up enough to let him, but this was something else. Something more. He’d been running for fifteen minutes and was barely working up a sweat so far, wasn’t feeling it in his muscles the way he would expect.

It was exhilarating, flying through the woods and barely aware of his own body, it was so easy. He found himself picking up speed even more as the ground started to slope - towards the lake maybe? - but didn’t feel out of balance or in danger of falling. 

Steve started to see light glinting ahead of him through the trees, like sunlight off water. He pushed on, and rounded another bend and found the trees thinning around him rapidly until he came to the beach. He skidded to a stop in the sand, staring at the beautiful, serene lake in front of him, the reflection of the hills and trees and sun in the surface. He was panting now, but only slightly, a good ache starting in his legs.

A way off, Steve could make out a dock, but it was as empty as the rest of the shore. He decided to use it as his end point and headed towards it at a run. It took another fifteen minutes to reach, and was still empty when he got there, so he turned and ran back, keeping an eye out for the little path he’d barrelled out of before.

He found it easily, in spite of the fact that it was pretty small and the stretch of beach wasn’t really distinguishable from the area around it. But he knew it was right, somehow, so he headed up the hill and sure enough, he found himself at the back of his own house twenty minutes later.

Now he was sweating, panting more and feeling the cold air scrape his throat. Steve lifted his hands to his head and steadied his breathing, contemplating the run.

Steve was plenty fit, tried to work in cardio and strength training every day at home because gyms were expensive, and usually required memberships that were hard to cancel or remember when you had to pick up and split town abruptly. So he was strong, and had plenty of endurance, and he’d worked for it.

An hour long run where he barely broke a sweat was not something he had worked up to. A run through woods and along a sandy beach and back up a hill - he didn’t even know the total distance - and the most he could claim was pleasantly sore muscles was not Steve’s normal, and he knew it.

There was also his ability to find the path back up with no trouble. It didn’t seem particularly special, but Steve was sure he’d never been able to do anything like that before. His sense of direction was just fine, but he was a city boy. Recognizing tiny footpaths in forests was not in his repertoire. He didn’t know what it meant, but it was probably something he should mention to Bucky and Natasha.

Thinking of Bucky made him check the time on his phone. It was almost nine. Steve had been at Bucky’s around this time yesterday, hadn’t he? Maybe he was awake now. If not...well, Steve still felt really ridiculously energetic. He needed to do something, and more running would work, but company would be nice.

He jogged back over to Bucky’s house without even showering. This time, his knocking went unanswered long enough that Steve just tried the doorknob and found it unlocked.

True to his word, Bucky was asleep on the couch, snoring into the cushions on the back, one of the throw pillows over his head, the other tucked under his arms. Steve stifled a snort, pulled out his phone, and quietly took a picture. 

Bucky stirred slightly, as though he knew someone was there, so Steve tucked his phone away and said, “Good morning, starshine!” in the most obnoxiously chipper voice he could muster.

Bucky snorted and jumped, the pillow on his head flopping to the floor. He turned over slightly and blinked blearily at Steve and mumbled something that sounded like “what the fuck.”

“I went on my run,” Steve said. “And I was promised coffee if I left you alone for more sleep.”

Bucky groaned. “I said no such thing,” he muttered, turning back over.

“True.” Steve shrugged even though Bucky wasn’t looking at him. And then, because Bucky wasn’t looking at him and Steve was far too aware of all of Bucky’s bare skin and apparently had no idea how to just act normal about it, he stepped forward and fell on top of Bucky, as gently as possible, making sure to put his sweaty chest on Bucky’s bare one.

“Oh my god, I hate you,” Bucky said, shifting under Steve like he could burrow into the couch and away. “You’re a morning person and I hate you. Go bother Sam. He can have you. He can be the best neighbor. I don’t care.”

“Bucky, come on.” Steve drew the words out and wiggled on top of him. It did not help him forget that they were pressed together like it was a thing they did all the time and they had known each other for years, but it was easier to ignore with Bucky being cranky. “I’m all jacked up on new magic juice or something. I need entertainment.” He lifted an arm close to Bucky’s face in the hopes that the BO would rouse him. There was a moment where Bucky didn’t react, and then he groaned.

“Steve you fucking - you smell and you’re cold and I hate you.” His voice pitched up into a whine, and then he was rolling under Steve and tumbling them both off the couch onto the floor. 

Steve laughed and tried to wiggle out from under him. Bucky’s grip was strong, and even half-asleep and cranky he was fast, and clearly trained. A few heated moments of grappling later, Bucky had Steve pinned on his stomach, his knees squeezing Steve’s thighs, Steve’s hands trapped behind his back.

“Alright, you win,” Steve gasped through his laughter. “Uncle. Jesus, you know what you’re doing.”

Bucky huffed and let up on his wrists, then stood up. Steve tried to calm down, tried not to think about Bucky pinning him to the carpet completely naked and--

“I trained for a long time,” Bucky was saying. Steve swallowed heavily and dug his nails into his palms.

“Oh yeah?” He pushed himself up onto his knees, watching Bucky amble into the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot.

“Yeah. You don’t stand a chance, Rogers.”

“That a challenge?” Steve asked. Like he’d be able to handle another wrestling match with Bucky almost naked anyway. Like he wouldn’t just let Bucky pin him down.

Bucky snorted, then stretched his hands above his head and grunted a little. Steve stared, and wanted to die. “After coffee, man, give a guy twenty minutes to wake up.”

Steve didn’t have much to say to that, and he was still distracted watching Bucky’s muscles move under his skin, so he just stood up and moved to the breakfast nook. Closer to Bucky, which was not what he needed, but then Bucky put coffee in front of him, providing a convenient distraction.

Bucky made them breakfast, then went up to his room to change. He came back down in his own workout clothes, hair tied back, sneakers and socks in hand.

“Alright, let’s go outside and see what you can do.”

Steve followed Bucky onto the lawn. “Shoes off,” Bucky said, shaking out his arms and legs.

“What are we doing?” Steve asked, sitting on the porch steps to take off his shoes.

“Think we’ll start with sparring,” Bucky said. “Ever been in a fight?”

Steve snorted. “I was a hundred pound kid in Brooklyn with a chip on his shoulder the size of Alaska. I’ve been in fights.”

“Good,” Bucky said, laughing. “I don’t have to feel bad about punching you.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Think you can land any?”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed, but he was grinning, same as Steve, looking playful and silly. “Buddy, you have no idea what you’ve signed yourself up for.”

Turned out, Bucky was absolutely right about that. 

Steve had been in plenty of fights before, many of which he’d started himself. He wasn’t afraid of hitting people, or taking a hit, and he could fight just as dirty as any kid and felt no shame about it. The point of a fight, he’d always thought, was to win, not to look good.

Bucky agreed, but that didn’t really heal Steve’s battered pride any as he scraped himself off the grass for what felt like the hundredth time. Because Steve had always thought he could hold his own in a fight just fine, until he started scrapping with Bucky.

For starters, Bucky was _fast._ It was definitely because he wasn’t human, and Steve would have been disturbed and terrified, if he hadn’t noticed his own reflexes had increased by leaps. He knew, logically, that both of them were moving and throwing punches faster than any human could, but he didn’t actually feel any different.

Bucky was trained in something besides ‘back alley brawling’ though, and it showed. Steve could match his magical speed with his own reflexes, but he couldn’t predict the punches and the kicks coming at him the way Bucky seemed able to, couldn’t take the slightest opening and use it as another chance to throw Steve several feet backwards into the dirt.

Steve believed Bucky when he said he was going easy on him, but Bucky’s strength was something else, regardless. He hit like a fucking sledgehammer, fists and elbows and feet managing to find weak spots every time. It was exhausting. Steve was also fairly certain he and Bucky had very different definitions of “going easy.”

“Okay,” Steve panted, flat on his back _again._ “Okay, why are we doing this again?”

“I wanna see your strength and reflexes,” Bucky said. He plopped down next to Steve. It was only slightly comforting to see that he was also panting, shirt damp with sweat. “It’s not a really great indication of what you are, but not every magical being has enhanced strength and speed. You do though, so we can rule out a couple things. It’s also just important to know how to fight. And hey, you’re not bad.”

Steve groaned. “Never speak to me again. I think my entire body is bruised.”

Bucky grinned. “You hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Let’s go to The Nest. Sam and Clint wanna see you, and I don’t wanna cook. Besides, you eat as much as I do, Rogers, and I’m gonna run out of food.”

Steve blushed and sat up, wincing at an ache in his ribs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even - I’ll pay you back for the food.”

Bucky waved him off, of course.“I was joking, punk.” He stood up and offered Steve a hand. “We can consider it payment for letting me beat you up all morning.” 

“Ugh.” Steve shoved him away as soon as he was back on his feet. “You’re a jerk.”

Bucky laughed. “A jerk, really? Are you ten?”

“Fuck you.”

Bucky just smirked, the bastard, and got his keys.

***

The Nest was empty again, except for Clint and Sam playing cards behind the counter. They waved when Steve and Bucky came in and gestured to the seats in front of them.

“Why is it so quiet around here?” Steve asked.

“You guys just missed the lunch rush,” Clint said. “What have you been up to?”

“Beating Steve up,” Bucky said, grinning as he slid into a seat. 

“Aw, that’s not very nice, Buck,” Clint said. “He’s new. Give him some time.”

“Look, he’s the one who came in all wanting entertainment before I’d even woken up or had coffee, he got exactly what he deserved.” Bucky lifted his nose and huffed.

“Oh, I see, it was payback?” Steve said. “What happened to ‘testing my abilities,’ huh?”

Sam laughed. “Bucky’s a damn liar, man,” he said. “And he likes to beat people up.”

“You’re just mad that you still can’t beat me hand to hand or flying.” Bucky smirked.

“A damn lie,” Sam repeated. “I beat your winged demon ass at least fifty percent of the time and you know it.”

“You can fly?” Steve cut in.

Sam smiled easily. “Yeah, man. I’m a griffin. This isn’t my usual body, but it works okay. Certainly makes cooking easier.”

Steve gaped. “A griffin. Wow.”

“Clint here can too,” Sam said.

Clint sighed very slightly. “Hi, Steve, I’m a harpy.”

“Oh.” Steve thought for a minute. “Cool.” At Clint’s slightly surprised but pleased look, Steve shrugged. “I’m so far past being shocked by anything anymore. You’re a harpy, Nat’s cat can talk. Literally nothing will surprise me anymore. And anyway, why shouldn’t there be male harpies? That’s just logical, right?”

Clint grinned. “You are a hundred percent correct, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t idiots, you know? Lemme make you a smoothie.” He got up and started to dig around in the fridge under the blender behind him. They ordered some food, and Sam got up to make it for them, calling out to them occasionally from behind the window into the kitchen.

“So, Steve, you seem a lot less inhibited today,” Clint said when he set the smoothies in front of them. There was enough for he and Sam too, and when Steve took a sip, he could taste some kind of alcohol under the fruit, strong and firey. He coughed slightly, and kicked Bucky when he laughed.

“Less inhibited, really?” He said. “I’m not sure that’s the word you’re looking for.”

Clint shrugged and waved a hand. “Whatever. You know. Spill.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Right. Well, yeah, Natasha and Wanda and Pietro did...a spell? I guess. There was definitely magic involved.”

Sam and Clint laughed. “Had any magic lessons with Nat, yet?” Sam called over.

“No. Just a boxing lesson with Bucky. Is she going to be as bad?”

“Worse.”

Sam settled in with his spiked smoothie once he’d brought out their food. “So, what’s your plan now?”

Steve shrugged, dipping his sandwich into his soup. “I don’t know yet. I don’t--” he stopped and thought for a minute, chewing slowly. “I came because Natasha and Fury said they could help me find my people, my family. The non-human family, I guess, since the human family are dead or want nothing to do with me. But I can’t do that until Natasha actually figures out what I am, since she’s never seen anything like me before, apparently.”

“Bet that wasn’t easy for her to say,” Clint said. 

Bucky snorted. “Thought she was gonna shoot something.” He was frowning a little at his eggs when Steve looked over.

“So, until then you’re here,” Sam said. Steve nodded, and Sam shrugged. “And afterwards, maybe. It’s not like you’ll get kicked out as soon as you have somewhere else to go.” His eyes flicked Bucky and back. “We like you here.”

“Thanks. I guess it depends on what happens, what Natasha finds out. I hadn’t put a lot of thought into what would happen after I found my mother and her people. That alone was enough to worry about.”

“Well, like I said, you’ll always be welcome here,” Sam said with a shrug and an easy smile.

Clint started to hum The Rolling Stones. Sam kicked him and Steve raised an eyebrow.

The door opened, and the three people who walked in made Steve do a double take. The girl in front had green skin and shimmery wings protruding from her back. She smiled at the sight of them and flounced up to the counter, dragonfly wings fluttering behind her and lifting her slightly off the ground every few steps.

“Hi, Sam.” She smiled and leaned across the counter at him, dress dipping low over her chest. “Bruce needs this week’s supplies.”

“Is that so?” Sam asked, an indulgent smile on his face. “And he asked you to bring them over?”

Her smile widened, triumphant. “Yes.”

Sam looked surprised. “I see.” He leaned around her as the other two approached. “Hey Thor, hi Jane. Bruce really wants Darcy to bring him his supplies?”

The woman laughed. She looked like Darcy, but a little thinner and shorter. One green hand rested on the elbow of the huge man next to her. His skin was darker green, wings bigger. Both of them walked at a more sedate pace through the restaurant.

Steve stared until Bucky nudged him with an elbow. He snapped his jaw shut and tried not to freak out because _holy shit, fairies._

“Yeah, he asked her,” Jane said. “Probably because it would get her out of his hair.”

Darcy pouted. “I’m helpful.”

“He wanted to bite you.”

“Only because he loves me.”

Jane looked ready to retort, but Sam cut in quickly, “Hey, guys, this is Steve.”

All three of the fairies looked at him. Darcy raised an eyebrow and hummed.

“ _Steve,_ ” she said, grinning and revealing sharp little teeth. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Steve blinked. “Um. Nice to meet you.”

She continued to smile at him. Her eyes didn’t have irises, he saw, just black pools. It was unnerving. Thor and Jane’s were the same, but they weren’t looking at him quite so intensely.

“A pleasure to meet you, Steven,” Thor boomed. He was even bigger up close, broad and muscular and dwarfing tiny Jane next to him.

“Steve, this is Thor, Jane, and Darcy, formerly fairies of the Seelie Court,” Sam introduced.

“Formerly?” Steve asked.

Thor sighed. All three of them settled into stools, Jane and Thor next to Steve, Darcy leaning against Bucky’s shoulder. He didn’t seem to mind. “My father wished for me to marry nobility, and I fell in love with Jane.”

“Common pixies just aren’t good enough for princes, I guess,” Darcy said. “Even though Jane has like twenty degrees.”

“So I stepped down,” Thor continued.

“We like the human world,” Jane said. “Better than fairy. I can go to school. Shield was the best option for a place to live. We don’t have to hide all the time.”

Steve nodded. “What’s it like there?” 

“Boring,” Darcy said.

“Indulgent,” Jane said. “Chaotic. There’s a hierarchy and nobility and still no order. Everyone just does what they want, so long as none of the commoners get in the way of the nobility.”

“Far better than living in an Unseelie court,” Thor declared. “Where the rules are arbitrary and whimsical, and the punishments harsh.”

“Where did Nat find you?” Darcy asked.

“Brooklyn,” Steve said. “Said she’d help me find out what I am. Don’t suppose any of you know?”

All three of them looked at him for a moment, then shook their heads. “Unfortunately, no,” Jane said. “Powerful, though. Interesting. I’d be--sorry.” She blushed. “That was rude.”

Steve shrugged. “I was raised by humans and have no idea what faux pas in the magical world look like, so don’t worry about it.”

“ _Raised_ by humans?” Darcy asked. “How did they not notice?”

“They did,” Steve said. He sighed, and launched into the story of the binding and the spell to remove it.

“Fascinating,” Jane said. “Why would someone bind you like that?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Steve said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't have anything clever to say about this chapter so i will just awkwardly remind you that i am on [tumblr](http://lisa-in-the-sky.tumblr.com/) instead


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Aww, want me to pop your cherry, Rogers? ;)_

Steve sent Bucky a text the next morning after his run, asking for a rematch. He puttered around the house for a while, but didn’t get a response.

Which was fine. Steve was perfectly capable of entertaining himself. He could call up Sam or Natasha. It was a little abrupt, but Steve tried to be reasonable and told himself that Bucky was working or something.

He texted Natasha. _Plans for the afternoon?_

_None for me. You?_

_Nah._ Steve pushed away the impulse to ask about Bucky, feeling desperate and weird. _I was thinking maybe you could give me my first magic lesson?_

_Aww, want me to pop your cherry, Rogers?_

_Steve laughed out loud, rolling his eyes. Guess so :P_

_Can you find your way to my place?_

_Yeah. Be there in twenty_

It was easy enough to get to Natasha’s house, once Steve jogged into town. By the time he reached her doorstep, he was a little sweaty, and she smirked when she opened the door.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be, probably,” he said, following her up the stairs. “What are we gonna do?”

“Today we’re starting with you intentionally reaching for your magic, and if that goes okay, we’ll try directing it into something. May give me some clues as to what you are, too.”

The extra room upstairs was a workshop, lined with tables and shelves like the magic shop. Natasha settled on the floor in the middle, and Steve sat across from her.

“So, how have you been feeling?” She asked.

“Great,” Steve said. “Different. Uh, more energy, stronger, faster. More endurance. I’m sore today because Bucky kicked my ass today, but honestly I can’t believe I held my own as well as I did against him. I’ve been able to see people’s auras, or something, since the other day too.”

“What do they look like?”

“Yours matches your hair. Moves around like it’s dancing, kind of, around your whole body. Wanda’s was red, sparky. Pietro’s was blue, looked like a plucked string. They sort of reached for each other when they were close together.”

“You can see it now?” Steve nodded and she continued. “Interesting.”

“Why?”

“Well, everyone has certain natural abilities that don’t turn off or on, but don’t really drain you the way other magic does. What you’re describing is something that I have to actively use my magic for, but the fact that you’ve been able to do it since we unbound you suggests it’s more natural for you.”

“What exactly am I seeing?”

“Aura’s an okay word for it, but it’s mostly a magical aura. The color and shape is a reflection of the person and the magic type, and the size sort of indicates what kind of user they are. So, I’m a witch, magic is in my whole body, something I can manipulate for a lot of different purposes. Sharon is an elf. Naturally magical, of course, but it’s not something she can manipulate as much, it’s just what gives her the connection to plants and extends her life beyond that of a human. Do you have one?”

Steve had looked in the mirror that morning to see, but the golden glow surrounding him wasn’t visible there, only when he looked directly at himself.

“Yeah. It’s gold and a little bit spiky. Doesn’t move a lot as far as I can tell.”

Natasha nodded. “That’s what I see too, not that I know what it means,” she said with a little scowl.

Steve smiled and shrugged. “You’re not the first person.”

Being a mystery lost a lot of it’s appeal after a lifetime of unanswered questions.

She pursed her lips. “I don’t aim to be average, Steve.” That made Steve laugh, and she smiled. “But I’ll find out.”

It turned out that intentionally reaching for his magic was not Steve’s forte. It involved a lot of sitting quietly and feeling around for…a spark, or a purr, or an ember, a flutter, anything. That part could be anything, Natasha explained. For her, it was a quiet spot in her mind, the magic a sense of calm that spread through her body before she used it.

Steve tried for that first, feeling almost like he was meditating. He knew what other people’s magic felt like – a tingle on the skin, goosebumps, fire. When searching for his quiet place only resulted in a wandering mind, he looked at Natasha and sighed.

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“I know. I wish I could give you better advice. I’ve never had to teach someone who had no access to his magic before. No training, sure, but completely blocked off?” She sighed. “Whoever did this to you was an idiot.”

Steve looked at her sharply. “Weren’t you suggesting it could have been my mother?”

Natasha looked unrepentant. “Yes, and I stand by that, and my assessment. She crippled you, Steve—“

“Stop,” Steve growled, but she continued.

“—even if it was an unintentional side effect, she left you vulnerable, and that says a lot about her.”

“You don’t know anything about her,” Steve snapped. He pushed himself to his feet, ready to leave.

“Do you?” Natasha stood and grabbed his wrist. “I know you’ve had questions for and about her your whole life Steve, but all things considered you should at least think about the fact that there’s a reason she left you with your father and that binding. I’m not saying it was or wasn’t malicious, but you need to be prepared for that possibility that it was, and that she’s not going to be everything you want.”

Steve tried to pull away, and was surprised to find he couldn’t. He looked down and found Natasha’s magic had brightened the glow around her hand, extending to wind around his arm as well. It didn’t hurt, but the pressure around his wrist was firm and after another tug, Steve’s heart started to race.

“Let go.”

“Make me.” She raised an eyebrow, hand tightening around his wrist.

Steve stared, gritting his teeth. He was very not in the mood for games, or Natasha’s little tests.

“Stop screwing around.” He pulled again.

“Is that the best you can do?” She laughed, and Steve’s blood boiled. A distant part of him knew what she wanted, knew she was goading him, and it didn’t even matter. Her words about his mother were rattling around in his head, loud and frightening and fueling the anger.

Steve looked at his hand again, and this time instead of pulling, he pushed at Natasha, shoving her away from him with his mind and his body, hoping intent was enough.

For once, it was. The dim glow of Steve’s magic brightened, clashing not only against Natasha’s hold on Steve’s wrist, but her whole body, lifting her briefly off her feet. She let go of his wrist with a surprised grunt and was flung backwards, stumbling and catching herself on a table.

There was a moment of shocked silence, and then she straightened up with a grim smile.

“Feel it?”

Steve stared at her, angry and incredulous. “I—yeah. Did you…”

She shrugged. “I watched you for a little while before we made contact, remember? And I saw you in that bar fight. Getting angry in a physical altercation isn’t a long term solution, but I needed you to find it somehow. It worked.”

Steve sighed. “You’re a bitch.”

She shrugged, unapologetic. “You know what it feels like now though. And we can add extreme force fields to your list of skills.”

In spite of Steve’s reluctance to stick around and work with her any longer, he stayed at Natasha’s for most of the evening. His irritation with her seemed to help him reach his magic anyway. The longer they worked, the easier it got, although Steve could feel himself tiring, the heat of both magic and anger dimmer every time he used them. Eventually, Natasha called it off, leading him to the kitchen.

“Drink this,” she ordered, setting a mug of tea in front of him. Steve lifted it and wrinkled his nose.

“Smells like mold.”

“It’ll help replenish your magic. Drink.” She set a cutting board, knife, and an onion at his elbow. “And cut.”

Steve sighed but didn’t argue. They cooked and drank in silence for a while, until Natasha had onions and mushrooms frying on the stove, pasta boiling next to it.

“I’m sorry for what I said about your mother,” she said abruptly. “Mostly for the way I said it. I know it’s not easy for you to talk about.”

Steve didn’t respond for a long time, drinking his moldy tea in silence. Finally he asked, “Do you really think she did this to me to hurt me?”

Natasha sighed. “I hate saying this again, but I don’t know. It’s impossible for me to say without knowing anything about her, even what she was.” She sat at a stool across from him. 

“I never knew my mother either, or my father. Witchcraft isn’t like being a demon or a griffin, it’s not a guarantee. It runs in families, but skips siblings or entire generations all the time. My family hadn’t had a witch in over 100 years, and when I was born with it, I was sent away immediately.

“But whatever you are, it’s a – a species. Your mother was not human. And without knowing what she was, I can’t tell you why she’d do this to you.”

She sighed, and reached out slowly, laying a hand over Steve’s. “I don’t know if she wanted to hurt you. I want to believe she didn’t, but you should prepare for the possibility.”

Steve nodded, staring at the countertop. “Thank you,” he said. “For being honest with me. I’m sorry I called you a bitch.”

“It’s alright. I was being one. Usually am, ask anyone.”

Steve smiled tightly. “You’re probably right. I mean, the family I grew up with rejected me, why not this one?”

Natasha squeezed his hand. “I’m not guaranteeing it one way or the other. Maybe she and all of your cousins or whatever will be everything you dreamed. But even if they’re not, you’re not alone.”

***

Sunday morning, Steve woke up with none of the aches from his sparring session with Bucky on Friday. He looked in the mirror to double check, but all of the visible bruises had faded to almost nothing.

Because Nat had told him to, Steve practiced just feeling his magic while he drank his coffee. Even that didn’t feel weak like it had the day before, just as strong as when he’d started practicing with Natasha.

He sent her a text before heading out on his run. _Magic feels normal. Getting easier to reach too. Also, all my bruises and aches from Bucky gone already. ???_

She texted back quickly, _Good :) Enhanced healing? Good 2 know._

Steve hesitated before putting his phone away, then sent Bucky a text too. 

_Already all healed up. Rematch? I’ll win this one._

Feeling nervous and desperate and silly, Steve tossed the phone onto the couch and ran out.

He was testing his endurance out, trying to see how long he could last on a run. Yesterday he had run for an hour and a half and worked up a sweat, but hadn’t really felt it physically the way he would have expected.

He ran for more than two hours today, forcing himself to focus on his body and feeling for his magic instead of any of Bucky or his mother or the party that afternoon.

When he finally emerged from the woods behind his house, sweaty and finally starting to feel sore, Bucky was sitting on the porch steps. Steve’s stomach tossed at the sight of him sprawled on the steps in the sunlight. He swallowed and tried to act normal, although that had mostly gone out the window when they met.

“Hey.”

Bucky smiled and ducked his head a little. “Hey. I texted you but you didn’t say anything, so I came over. And then you weren’t here.”

Steve paused several steps away. “I left, like, two hours ago.” He smiled. “Have you been waiting this whole time?”

Bucky’s eyes widened and his cheeks went pink with shocking speed. “No, I – I didn’t text you back right away. And I had coffee first.”

“So you’ve been sitting on my porch for an hour.”

Bucky stood up, still red. “Shut up, punk.”

Steve laughed. “I guess that makes up for not texting me at all yesterday.”

Bucky grimaced. “Sorry about that. I just – I had a rough night and slept most of the day.”

The entire sentence was accompanied by a trickle of shimmery gray smoke, and a little thrill of Steve’s magic in his mind. He stared at the smoke, realizing that Bucky couldn’t see it. It disappeared almost as soon as he was done talking.

“Right,” Steve said. “Are you—okay?”

Bucky gave Steve a strange look, probably the same look Steve was giving him. “Yes…are you?”

Clearly, he hadn’t seen the smoke. Steve nodded. “Yeah. There was…smoke? Coming out of your mouth? And my magic…did something.”

Bucky blinked. “Smoke?”

Steve nodded. “Basically. It was a little shimmery.”

Bucky hummed, considering. “I am 28 years old.”

It happened again. “Really?” Steve asked.

“No,” Bucky said. “Did it happen?

Steve nodded. “So I can see lies!”

Bucky grimaced. “Looks like it.”

They stared at each other and Steve thought about asking why Bucky was lying, but the stubborn look on his face said it was definitely not a fight he would win. 

“Cool,” Steve decided. “Want some food? I need to shower, and then…” he trailed off. “I still haven’t stocked my kitchen.” 

Bucky laughed. “I gotta stop feeding you, or you never will. Go shower, I’ll take you to the grocery store.”

“So what should I expect from the people running the store?” Steve asked. “Vampires?”

“Nah, Bruce is our only vampire.”

“Wait, what?”

Bucky smirked. “Thought you were being funny, huh? Bruce the recluse scientist is a vampire. He mostly stays at home or in Tony’s lab because he’s always afraid he’ll try to get out into the world and murder some humans.” The words were flippant, but Bucky’s face was grim.

“Fuck,” Steve muttered. “Is that - has he done that before?”

“The way he acts about it, I think so, but I’ve never asked and he doesn’t say. He’s a great guy, real smart, just...jittery. Sad.”

Steve didn’t comment on Bucky’s own mysterious past. “So, the store owner?”

“Oh, yeah, Rhodey. He’s also a djinn, he and Tony have been friends for a long time. He and Carol have been together a long time, she’s a dragon. Her and Pepper have known each other even longer than Tony and Rhodey.”

Steve stared at him. “Jesus. Ok. Dragons. Pepper’s also a dragon??”

Bucky nodded, still laughing at him. 

“I was wrong,” Steve said weakly. “I’m still surprised.”

Carol and Rhodey were nice, if a bit intimidating. Mostly Carol, who lacked a lot of the easy conversation skills that Pepper had. Rhodey was easier to talk to than Tony, but that wasn’t really saying much. Neither of them knew what Steve was, somehow, which baffled both of them. 

“I’m old,” Carol said. “I should be able to recognize it.”

After they left, Bucky told Steve that Rhodey used his magic to transport all of the goods from the city to the store, and that they mostly ran a grocery store because they were old and had done so much other stuff they had decided they deserved a break.

“What do you do?” Steve asked.

“What?”

“You said everyone has a job around here. What’s yours?”

“Oh,” Bucky said. “I babysit for whoever needs it.”

Steve almost laughed. “Really?”

Bucky shrugged. “Yeah.” He looked at Steve. “What, punk? Kids are great, easier to deal with than most adults. What do you do, huh?”

Steve did laugh, shrugging. “I donno yet. Maybe I should get into the babysitting business. I hear the guy they’ve got doing it now is a real loser.”

Bucky shoved him. “You’d never make it,” he said. “The kids here are little monsters, they’d eat you alive.”

“Literally?” Steve asked, and laughed so hard he almost fell over at Bucky’s incredulous look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really, really love dragons, and also Carol Danvers and Pepper Potts


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Rogers, stubborn asshole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the part where it becomes really obvious how much dungeons and dragons i have played

Steve yawned and flipped carefully onto his stomach, pillowing his head on his arms. He blinked his eyes open at Bucky, laying next to him on his back with one hand and foot in the water. The lake around them was quiet and still, even in the heat when he would have expected more of the citizens of Shield to be doing the same as Steve and Bucky were. 

It helped that neither of them had day jobs to be at. They had been spending their mornings and evenings working out, and the hotter parts of the day relaxing. Today they had decided to go “swimming” which turned out to mean sunbathing on a raft that was honestly too small for two grown men of their size, not that Steve was complaining.

“Hey, Bucky.”

“Hm.” Bucky didn’t even turn his head. Steve had almost thought he was asleep.

“You never actually explained any of the demon stuff to me.”

They’d been pretty busy, the first couple days after Steve’s unbinding, and then it was pretty hard for Steve to remember to ask Bucky while he was getting his ass kicked in sparring sessions, or trying not to blow anything up in Natasha’s workshop.

(Turned out, Natasha was right about Steve’s magic not being disposed towards explosions or deceit. That didn’t mean he couldn’t mix the wrong things together.)

“Mm.” Bucky finally turned his head, and Steve could just barely see him blinking behind his sunglasses. “What’d you wanna know?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t even know where to start. Maybe...explain the planes thing?”

Bucky nodded and flipped onto his stomach, rocking the little raft dangerously. He grinned at Steve’s grunt of protest and propped himself up on his elbows.

“Okay,” he started. “So, we’re on Earth, right?”

“Last I checked.”

“Yeah, so Earth exists on what most people refer to as the terrestrial plane.”

“Earth exists on the earth plane?”

“Don’t get cheeky, punk.” Bucky put one hand palm up in the air. “This is the terrestrial plane, where you and me and Earth and Pluto and the Milky Way and Andromeda are.” He brought the other hand over above his left, palm down, at a slight angle. “This is the plane I grew up on,” and here his voice dipped and growled out a sound that Steve couldn’t recognize. He made a face and Bucky laughed. “That’s the word for it in our language. It doesn’t exactly...translate. It’s not just the word for “demon” or anything.”

“Huh. So, what do you call here?” Steve gestured around his head, meaning the plane they apparently existed on. Bucky made another growling sound, and even though this time Steve picked up on the hisses in the middle, it was still nonsense. “Right. Not sure why I asked.”

Bucky grinned. “That one translate roughly to ‘wingless.’”

“Wingless?”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah. You know, the top of the food chain gets to name everything, so the dicks with wings picked it out.”

“Not all demons have them?”

“Not on my planet, anyway,” Bucky said. “That’s the thing about planes, is that it’s sort of like this one, there’s a universe and planets and galaxies and everything, but the rules are different - gravity and planetary movement and evolution and everything.” He caught Steve’s look. “It’s not really complicated, but it’s a lot to wrap your head around, you know?”

“Yeah,” Steve said faintly. “I mean, I can barely wrap my head around how fucking big the universe is and yet...alternate planes of existence.”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay, so how is that different from alternate universes?”

“Well, an alternate universe would be you as a firefighter. Or a human. Or me born in Russia. Different situations, still Earth, still on this plane, probably. But you can have an alternate universe of my home plane as well. So, if my father were a different type of demon. You born a demon. But an alternate plane isn’t necessarily an altered reality. Make sense?”

“I think so,” Steve wrinkled his nose. “As much as it probably ever will.”

“Right.” Bucky was still grinning, and his eyes had lit up like explaining this stuff was completely thrilling. Steve wasn’t sure it made as much sense to him as it did to Bucky, but it was fun to watch him get excited.

“So, the cool thing about planes,” Bucky said, “is that they touch.”

“Touch?”

“Yeah. There are places where my plane touches this one, or the fairy plane, etc. That’s why all the stories of people visiting fairyland involve losing track of time and stuff - it’s a different plane, time works differently there. So, places like fairy hills are actually portals to another plane. But people like Natasha can also build portals, it just takes some time and a lot of magic.”

“Can you?”

“Build portals? Yeah, but it’s not easy. I haven’t done it in a long time.”

“Why?”

“Cuz it’s hard. And there’s no reason.” Bucky’s eyebrow went up just slightly, like a challenge. Steve was so curious about all of Bucky’s evasion and half-answers he thought he might die, but he really didn’t want to push, either.

He changed the subject, a little. “Okay, so do you have wings? In your other form?”

Bucky hesitated and then nodded slowly. “Among other things, yeah.”

There was an even longer pause. They stared at each other, Bucky challenging again, and Steve debating if this was something he could push on or not.

_Fuck it. If he doesn’t want to show me, he won’t._

“Can I see?”

***

They paddled the raft slowly back to shore, then went back up to Bucky’s house. He went into his bathroom, and when he came back out he was wearing only a towel around his waist. Steve decided not to comment, and Bucky led him back out to the yard.

“Okay,” Bucky said. His hands were clenched into fists, and there was a tightness around his eyes that made Steve feel bad for asking. “It’s....pretty weird. Especially when you - when you’ve never seen a demon before. Or anything...not terrestrial.”

“Bucky,” Steve started. He really didn’t want Bucky to be uncomfortable around him, but he was dying to know now. “Buck, I’m not gonna freak out. I promise.”

Bucky tried to smile. “You say that now, Stevie, but you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“So show me,” Steve said. “I - I wanna know you, Bucky. And hopefully by now I’ve gotten used to a little bit of weird in my life, right? I can handle it. You don’t have to show me, but I wanna see. It’s just you, Buck, it’s not like you’re different cuz you look different.”

Bucky sighed, shoulders dropping slightly. “Okay,” he said again. “Okay, here we go.”

He shut his eyes and breathed quietly for a moment. Steve could see and feel it when he started to change, the tingle of magic along his skin, a flicker in Bucky’s aura before the silver got even brighter. It started to grow too, so it was no longer just an outline but a cloud around Bucky, shining like metal around him. He could just make out Bucky’s shape behind it if he looked closely, but then the glow became too intense, and Steve lifted a hand to shield his eyes.

It didn’t last long, fading as quickly as it had grown. Steve kept his hand up until it was back to the strong outline around Bucky’s body. When he was sure it was done, Steve dropped his hand and stared.

Bucky’s wings were enormous, leathery and a burgundy color so dark they were almost black. They rose above his head and reached down to his calves, and even folded they were as wide as his shoulders. There was a little claw at the top of each one, like a bat’s, that almost mirrored the curve of the dark horns rising from just above his ears. They weren’t huge, but certainly noticeable. And sharp. 

Steve lingered on Bucky’s broad, flat feet and clawed toes before traveling back up the expanse of thick crimson skin. His heels were raised slightly so he was balanced on his toes, and Steve wasn’t sure if it was nerves, or for flight purposes. The towel looked smaller, but Steve was pretty sure Bucky had just gotten bigger. His chest and shoulders were wider, and when Steve looked closer, he could see a second set of pectorals extending past the normal human ones.

The towel was slipping, dislodged by the leather of his wings attached all the way down to his hips. The arm holding it up was normal - thick red skin, large hands with clawed fingers hooked delicately in the terrycloth. The other, though, his left arm, was armored with large, hard scales, starting above his shoulder and overlapping all the way down.

“Holy shit,” Steve breathed, awed. “Bucky that’s...wow.”

Bucky took a deep breath, eyes shifting nervously around and avoiding Steve. They were gold and slitted like a cats.

“Yeah, I know,” he muttered.

“No, Bucky,” Steve said, standing up. He wanted to touch, feel the scales and thick skin and leathery wings, but the look on Bucky’s face stopped him from approaching.

“Bucky, this is incredible. I - I’ve never seen anything like this, you’re right, of course I haven’t but it’s - Jesus, look at you. This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”

Bucky scoffed, but he seemed to relax a little. “You’re just saying that because you’ve never seen Pepper turn into a dragon.”

Steve laughed. “That doesn’t mean you’re not...amazing,” he said, probably too honestly. “Can you fly?” He asked to cover.

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, but not with the towel. It’s not exactly aerodynamic.”

“Right.” Steve face was getting warm. “Can I see it? Them. Your wings, I mean.”

Bucky hesitated again, but didn’t appear to notice Steve’s extreme awkwardness. Then both wings unfolded slowly. Steve stared. Each one was at least as wide as Bucky was tall, and with both of them out like this, there was an incredible sense of power. Steve swallowed.

“Can I…” He lifted a hand. Another pause, a deep breath, and one wing dipped forward to meet Steve’s hand. The leather was soft and supple, stretched tight between the bones. Steve’s fingers brushed the membrane, and it twitched slightly, shivering.

“You can feel it?”

“Mm. They’re like a bat’s. Sensitive, little hairs to catch the wind and stuff.”

Steve almost started to hold his breath as he touched the leather again. This time, it only shivered slightly.

“Bucky, seriously,” Steve said, looking at him. He was a little taller now, balanced on his toes like this. Up close, Steve could see the way the extra set of pectorals had widened his chest, turning it barrel like and deep. “This is - you’re amazing.”

Bucky huffed a laugh, looking away. “I don’t know about that. But thanks.”

Steve was still running his eyes over Bucky - the wings, the horns, the arm - when he noticed the irregularity of the left arm. He’d thought the scales were just a natural part of the arm, and maybe they were, but instead of going all the way down over his hand and fingers, they only got slightly smaller at the wrist, instead laying over the back of Bucky’s hand like a gauntlet. Steve frowned, but before he could say anything, Bucky twitched, the wing pulling away from him and his hand going behind his back.

“Don’t.” He stepped away, not looking at Steve.

Steve stared. They’d been _fine._ “Bucky, come on, I didn’t--”

“Steve, seriously, just leave it alone.”

“I didn’t even say anything!” Steve finally snapped. “And anyway, I’m your friend! I just want--” He huffed. “I just want to know you,” he repeated, setting his jaw. “I am your friend, right? Whatever horrible thing you think you’ve done, I don’t - I’m not interested in judging you. I just wanna know.”

Bucky’s jaw was set too, though, brows furrowed in a tight line. “You don’t have the right,” he snarled. “I don’t--I don’t owe you anything, and you don’t get to just fucking demand answers about everyone!”

There was the sound of a car in the driveway, and Steve was left standing there feeling like an idiot and an asshole when Bucky stalked away around the house. After a minute, Steve followed, swallowing the sudden wretched feeling in his chest.

The jeep in front of the house was bright red, dusty on the sides behind the wheels. Two beautiful women were climbing out. They both paused at the sight of Bucky, but looked only mildly surprised.

“Natasha said we might find you here,” said the taller one. Her dark brown hair curled gently around her, and the color on her lips matched her jeep. “Were you at the lake?”

“We were,” Bucky said. His voice was strained. “Steve, this is Peggy Carter, our fearless leader, and Angie Martinelli, her fearless wife.” He smiled tightly at both of them, jaw working silently. “Have a good day,” he said suddenly. He spun on his heel and stormed into the house, almost slamming the door behind him. Steve flinched.

“Trouble in paradise?” Angie asked. She was slim and willowy with dark blonde hair in a braid that fell all the way to her waist. Peggy elbowed her.

“You don’t owe us any explanations, Steve,” she said. “But we are looking for you, mostly. Bucky’s presence was optional.”

“If expected,” Angie muttered, earning another nudge from Peggy.

“Do you think you could come with us for a bit?”

“Sure,” Steve said, glancing at Bucky’s door. He didn’t want Steve around right now anyway, and Steve definitely needed a bit to figure out what to say. “It’s nice to meet you. What do you need?”

“We’ll explain on the way,” Peggy said, gesturing to the car.

“And you can tell us all about your fight,” Angie added cheerfully, already climbing into the passenger seat. Peggy just sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> commence extreme hand waving and ~*~magic~*~


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feeling like he was ten years old, Steve looked at his hands twisting together in his lap. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I like him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angie and Peggy are literal queens and i am disappointed in myself for not including them more here.

“You’ve had the wards explained to you, right?” Peggy asked in her crisp accent as they pulled away from Bucky’s house.

“Yeah, mostly,” Steve said. “Uh, they hide the area we’re in, and they sort of hold a little bit of everyone’s magic or something to do it, right?”

“Or something,” Peggy said. “It’s a little piece of us, imbued with our own magic, given freely. That’s the power base for the spell. That’s also how it knows who to allow in and who to keep out.”

“Right.” Steve thought he knew where this was going. “You need something from me, right?”

“Bingo,” Angie said. She turned to face him. “Now that you’re all unbound and powerful--” Steve made a face, and she flicked his knee. “You _are,_ ” she insisted. “Just because you don’t know anything yet doesn’t change that.”

Steve sighed. “I’ll still feel a lot better when I stop almost blowing things up with Natasha.”

“Almost?” Angie asked, a teasing glint to her eye.

“It was one time.”

They both laughed, and even if Steve was feeling a little unsteady about the argument with Bucky, it was good to hear. They seemed open and easier to talk to than Bucky, shrouded in far less mystery.

“Your own ability isn’t important to this,” Peggy said. “You just need to make the offering, the spell will do the rest.”

“Huh. What should it be?”

“Well, it could be anything,” Angie said. “Better if it means something to you, though.”

Steve frowned. “What did you…?” He trailed off, not sure if that was another faux pas.

Angie just smiled and nodded. “I’m a siren,” she explained. “So I gave it a little song. Something easy for me to give but still valuable.”

“So it can be a physical thing?” Steve asked, remembering Liho telling him about Bucky simply giving it magic.

“Yes, that would do just fine, as long as it’s personal,” Peggy said.

“Do I get it back, or is it going to be destroyed or what?”

“No, it won’t be destroyed, but it has to stay in Shield. If you wanted to leave, we’d sever your tie to the spell and you could take it with you. Is there something you’d like to pick up at home?”

Steve thought for a minute, and then nodded. “Yeah, I think I have something that’ll work.”

Peggy turned the car around and took him back to his house. Steve had set up the extra space outside his bedroom on the second floor as a studio. In a corner was a pile of finished pieces, paintings and drawings or different sizes leaning against one another. He shuffled through them until he found a good one - a watercolor of Brooklyn from across the river. It had taken him almost a week to finish last summer. 

“Will this do?” He asked when he got back to the car.

“That’s lovely,” Peggy said. “Is it personal?” Steve nodded, and Peggy did the same before he even opened his mouth to explain. “You don’t need to tell me why. But it should do quite nicely.”

Steve nodded and settled it into the trunk of the car and climbed back in.

“So,” Angie said, turning to face him. “Sharon tells me that she sees you and Bucky in The Nest all the time.”

Steve blushed. “I - all the time?” It was true. They ate lunch there nearly every day. “I mean, I guess. We’ve been spending a lot of time together. He’s helping me learn to fight with my magic?”

Angie smiled. “That’s good. It’s nice that you two have gotten so cozy.”

“Angie,” Peggy said warningly.

“What?” Angie shrugged at her. “I want to know. And you do too, don’t give me that look.” She looked back to Steve. “You like him?”

Thrown by the forward question, Steve stuttered. “I - um - I mean, yes, he’s really nice and it’s nice of him to teach me--”

Angie flicked him on the knee, fixing him with a hard look. “Don’t play dumb,” she said. Peggy sighed next to her, flicking Steve an apologetic look in the rear view mirror. “You _like_ him?”

Feeling like he was ten years old, Steve looked at his hands twisting together in his lap. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I like him.”

“Good,” Angie said. “So what’d you fight about today?”

Steve sighed, resigned to the fact that he was not going to get out of this conversation. “I asked him to show me his demon form, and he did. And then I started asking the wrong questions, as usual, and he got mad and basically told me to mind my own business, because he never wants to tell me anything about his past because he thinks I’m gonna freak out and run away from him or something stupid.”

Angie hummed, but it was Peggy who spoke. “You know, Steve, sometimes the tighter we hold on to something, the harder it struggles.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the sentiment before,” Steve said.

“Bucky likes you,” Peggy said firmly. “But he’s got a lot of history to be afraid of. Most of us don’t even know a lot of it. I can’t tell you what I do know, because it’s not my place, but I think what Bucky needs is to trust you as completely as possible before he can tell you.”

“If you’re patient, he’ll know he can trust you not to run off at the first sign of trouble,” Angie said. 

Steve knew they were right, of course. And he knew he shouldn’t have pushed Bucky, because he didn’t owe Steve anything. Honestly all Steve wanted was for Bucky to feel like he could trust him. 

“I hate waiting,” Steve said plaintively, but he smiled, and both women laughed.

“Maybe Bucky will distract you,” Angie said, winking.

“Angie, don’t be crude,” Peggy said.

“Crude? What did I say that was crude? I just think Bucky could take Steve’s mind off the past real easy if he put his mind to it!”

“Oh, stop it,” Peggy laughed. The car pulled up to a cottage with a beautiful garden out front. 

“Is this yours?” Steve asked as they got out.

“Yep,” Angie said. “Peggy built it for us.” She sounded very smug.

Peggy laughed. “Hardly, darling. Come in, Steve.”

Steve followed them into the little foyer. There were stairs going up straight ahead, brightly lit living room to the right. Peggy and Angie led steve through the living room and around the stairs to a set that led down.

There was magic in the air, lingering, and it got thicker as they moved down the stairs into the basement. It was like a physical thing down there, a constant crackle over Steve’s skin.

“Is that the spell?” He asked.

“Yes.” Peggy flicked on a light to reveal a bare room lined with shelves. It looked like an average basement mostly, full of tools and some old wood and dust. There was a table in the middle, with a bowl of some glowing white liquid in it. Even to Steve’s totally untrained eye, it was obviously the source of the magic in the room.

“It’s quite simple, actually,” Peggy said. “Put your hand in the bowl, hold the painting, and let the spell do the work.”

“That’s it? Really?”

“Well, if you’re feeling real dramatic you can tell it, ‘I give you my safety,’ but it’s not necessary,” Angie said, smirking.

“I’ll pass.”

Steve set the painting on the table and laid one hand on it and slowly lowered the other into the shining liquid. It was a bit like putting his whole hand into one of those little prank buttons that shocked people when you shook their hands. The magic buzzed around his hand, then up his arm and through his chest, down the other arm. A warm glow surrounded the painting, and then Steve could feel the spell tangling with his own magic, deep in his chest, coaxing it gently out.

The glow around the painting faded, back up Steve’s arm and to the bowl. The liquid glowed the same gold as Steve’s magic for a minute, then faded back to white.

“You can take your hand out,” Peggy said, so Steve did. It was dry.

“Wow. That was easy.”

“How do you feel?” Peggy asked.

“Fine,” Steve said. “Should I be able to feel it?”

“As powerful as you are?” Angie said. “Nah. It’s a drop in the bucket, really.”

Steve nodded. “Okay. Um, now what?”

“Would you like some dinner?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally, there was going to be a cute conversation over dinner and then i just wanted to get to the drama so. sorry.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky was quiet for a while, finished his cigarette before looking at Steve.
> 
> “You always rush into everything head first without thinking about it?” He was smiling a little bit, exasperated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feeeeEEEELINGS

Dinner was nice. Angie and Peggy didn’t bring Bucky up until they dropped Steve back at his house in the evening.

“Take it easy, Rogers,” Angie said as he got out of the car, giving him a meaningful look.

“Let him take his time,” Peggy said.

“Alright,” Steve said. “Thanks again. For everything.”

Steve stared around his living room, Angie and Peggy’s advice settling into his head. They hadn’t said anything he didn’t know, really, but hearing it all from someone else definitely settled the idea in his head – he was an asshole. And an idiot.

Steve bit his lip, pulled out his phone, and called Bucky.

To his surprise, it was answered on the third ring, but the voice on the other end was definitely not Bucky’s.

“Steve!” It was a boy, pretty young from the sound of it. Steve could hear Bucky in the background.

“Elijah, you little – give me that phone!” He didn’t really sound angry, just exasperated.

The boy giggled and yelled, “Gotta catch me!”

There were the sounds of a chase on the other end of the phone, and Steve listened to Elijah laugh and taunt Bucky for a few minutes until he was caught. There was a scuffle for the phone, both of them laughing, and then Bucky had the phone, but he wasn’t talking to Steve.

“Dinner!” Bucky ordered. “I’ll be back in ten minutes and you’d better eat those vegetables, or I’ll feed you to my imps, you little brat.”

Elijah’s laughter faded a little, and then Bucky was sighing into the phone. “Yeah?”

“Hi,” Steve said. “I—“ don’t want to do this on the phone. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“I’m working.”

“I know. Can I come over there?”

There was a very long pause and Steve almost took it back, or started to apologize right there. But then Bucky said, “I’ll send you the address,” and hung up. A minute later, his phone pinged with a text from Bucky. It was a location, and when he tapped on it, it opened a map, guiding Steve to the Bradley’s house. He pocketed his wallet and keys and jogged out.

It was a short run, through town and a few driveways before Natasha’s. Bucky’s jeep was parked in front of the lovely, large house, all the lights on under the pointed eaves. Steve took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

There was some shouting inside and thundering feet, and the door was wrenched open by Elijah, Bucky not far behind.

“What’s the password?” He demanded.

“Um…I don’t know. Can I have a hint?”

“That’s okay,” Elijah decided, and opened the door wider to let Steve in. “Bucky wants you to come in, so you can.”

Bucky sighed, and Steve tried not to laugh.

“Okay, squirt, what movie are we watching?” Bucky asked, and Elijah raced off again. “It’s gonna be fuckin’ Cars again, I already know it,” Bucky told Steve. “Or Planes, which is even worse. Thank god you’re here.”

Steve chuckled, biting his lip. “Thanks for letting me come over.”

Bucky nodded, shutting the door. “We can talk once I get the movie started. He doesn’t actually care if I watch it with him.”

He walked away, around Steve, very carefully not touching him. It made Steve’s skin itch, but he forced himself not to say anything as he followed Bucky into the living room.

Elijah had pulled out Planes and was already setting it up.

“Have you seen it, Steve?” He asked, holding up the case. In the doorway to the kitchen, Bucky nodded frantically, so Steve lied.

“Yeah. It’s really good. Why do you like it?”

“Never actually seen a talking airplane,” Elijah said simply. Steve opened his mouth, found he had nothing to say in the face of this logic, and nodded.

“Fair enough.”

Bucky got Elijah his snacks. When he was set up, Bucky said, “We’re going outside for a cigarette. Shout if you need anything, and don’t you dare go digging into the fruit snacks.”

Elijah smiled innocently. “Yes, Bucky.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Little monster,” he muttered as he started the movie. He led Steve onto the front porch, leaving the door open and closing the screen.

Bucky leaned against the railing, not looking at Steve as he lit a cigarette. Steve leaned next to him and tried not to stare, again.

Bucky seemed able to endure endless silence without getting uncomfortable at all, smoking and staring at the sky without concern. Steve found it unbearable after only a few minutes.

“Thank you for showing me that, today,” he said. Bucky didn’t look at him, so he continued. “I know you didn’t really want to, so thank you for trusting me.”

He took a deep breath. “And I’m sorry for being an asshole about it. I could tell you didn’t really want to, and didn’t want to talk about whatever it was, and I shouldn’t have pushed it. You trusted me, and I was a dick, and I’m sorry. I want to get to know you, but I want to do it on your terms, want you to keep trusting me.”

Bucky was quiet for a while, finished his cigarette before looking at Steve.

“You always rush into everything head first without thinking about it?” He was smiling a little bit, exasperated.

Steve blushed. “How do you think I ended up here?” Bucky laughed and Steve felt the knot of worry in his chest unclench. “Sorry,” he said again.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “It’s alright, punk. But it’s heavy shit, okay? It’s hard to talk about, and I honestly don’t even remember all of it.”

Steve opened his mouth to ask, shut it, and nodded. Bucky laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Demons are bastards. All of us. That’s the baseline for my entire sad life.”

Steve just nodded again, and shifted closer, brushing his shoulder against Bucky’s. Bucky leaned into the contact with a sigh.

“I’ve done some really…terrible shit in that form. That’s why I freaked out. I spent most of my life like that, doing horrible things, and it puts me a little on edge. So I probably overreacted when you pushed, because I’m a bastard and because being like that makes me feel…disgusting, even if you think it looks cool.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said again. “We don’t have to talk about it. You can tell me later. Or never. Whatever you want.”

Bucky looked at him, and their faces were so close Steve could feel Bucky’s breath on his lips. Startled by the intimacy, the easy closeness of the gesture, Steve blinked, lips parting. He wasn’t even thinking about it, but Bucky’s eyes flicked to his lips, and then Steve was.

“Never?” Bucky asked, eyes locked with Steve’s.

Steve shrugged. “If you want.” He meant it, right then. If that was what Bucky needed, Steve would happily go forever never knowing anything Bucky didn’t want him to. Maybe it was desire talking, his pounding heart, but he wasn’t thinking about anything right then, not sex or kissing, just this, just Bucky wanting to be close like this as much as Steve did.

Bucky swallowed, eyes flicking down again. “I won’t make you wait that long,” he said, voice soft and rough.

Steve nodded slowly. “Okay.” His voice was just as soft, embarrassingly breathy where Bucky’s was distant thunder, but not a single part of Steve actually cared.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

It was all Steve could do to nod again, whisper, “Okay,” and then Bucky’s lips were pressing against his in soft, glacial movements. Steve could feel his chest expanding, but it was a lot more like drowning, the tightening around his chest, the burn in his stomach. It was fire and ice at once against his lips and his shoulder, fingers tingling and almost numb, all thought limited to Bucky and his lips, blood pounding in his ears.

Bucky’s arm reached across Steve, hand settling on his hip, shifting them both until Steve was pressed to the railing, Bucky pinning him in with one hand on his hip, the other on the railing behind him. His hand skimmed over Steve’s belt, hitched his shirt up just slightly to stroke gentle fingers over his hip. Sparks went up Steve’s spine and he gasped, hands coming up to Bucky’s hair and pulling. Bucky parted his lips too, tilting his head to fit their mouths together harder, tongue flicking out to meet Steve’s. His thigh slipped in between Steve’s, hard and suggestive, and Steve realized the breathy moaning was coming from him.

A car rumbled up the driveway as Steve started to grind against Bucky’s thigh, pressing their hips together and earning a lovely groan against his mouth. Bucky pulled back, panting, and looked over Steve’s shoulder.

“Fuck,” he muttered, looking at Steve longingly before stepping away. Steve whined, fingers tightening. Bucky pressed back in for another searing kiss before pulling away completely. “They’re back,” he said. “Can I drive you home?”

Steve nodded, hoping that meant picking up where they’d left off, maybe in Steve’s bedroom or living room or, shit, the hallway. He swallowed, pushing away the need for Bucky’s warm bulk pressed against him. He definitely needed to get himself under control if he was supposed to interact with the Bradleys. 

They parked and Bucky moved down the steps to greet them, giving Steve a minute to get himself back in shape. Eli provided another easy distraction when he came hurtling out of the house to fling himself into his parents’ arms. Steve finally stepped out to greet them as they were heading into the house.

“Steve, this is Isaiah and Samira Bradley,” Bucky said as they all shook hands.

Isaiah was built like a tank, tall and broad-shouldered, square jawed and intimidating. Samira was almost as tall as he was, curvy and even darker-skinned. Her hair formed a halo of perfect ringlets around her face.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Steve said, dying inside again because everyone in this town was _so beautiful._

“Hi, Steve,” Samira said, smiling. Isaiah nodded, the dignity of his silence ruined slightly by his son’s hands tugging on his braids. “Thanks for keeping them company. Would you guys like to come in?”

“No, that’s alright,” Bucky said. “Squirt still needs a bath, and I gotta get Steve here home. He likes to get up early and needs his beauty sleep.”

Steve elbowed him in the ribs while Samira and Isaiah laughed, knowing looks on their faces. 

“I’m sure he’ll get plenty,” Isaiah said.

“I’ll make sure of it,” Bucky said, cheeky and grinning like a fool. Steve blushed anyway.

“You two have a good night,” Samira said before pulling her boys into the house.

Steve leaned against Bucky and deliberately stepped on his foot. “You’re a jerk.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky laughed, wrapping his arm around Steve’s waist and tugging him down the stairs. “C’mon.”

The drive to Steve’s was quiet and easy, fingers laced together over the gearshift, trees flashing past. There was a flicker of anticipation in Steve’s stomach that was simultaneously thrilling and annoying. Mostly he wanted to pull the car off the road and jump Bucky right there, but the waiting could only make it better.

“Come inside?” Steve asked when they pulled up in front of his house.

Bucky looked at him, licking his lips. “I want to,” he said, and swallowed. “But...can we take it slow? I’m…” he bit his lip. It was very distracting, but Steve forced himself not to look.

“It’s okay, Buck,” he said. “Of course we can take it slow. Comfortable, remember?”

Bucky smiled, leaning across the center console and laying a hand on Steve’s cheek. “Thanks. It’s just been a while since...well, since anything, and since it, uh, was this personal.”

That was enough to distract Steve from how tempting Bucky was. It could have just mean he got around, but the way he said it felt like another strange, terrible thing that had happened to him in the past. Steve held back the questions and returned the smile, laying his hand over Bucky’s.

“Whatever you need.”

Bucky’s smile turned wicked. “Even if that means never?”

Steve laughed. “Even if it means never, but you’d better be okay with me jerking off in the shower a lot.”

Bucky laughed, pulling Steve in for a kiss. It was nice, sweet, and Steve still wanted to crawl into his lap and never leave.

They stayed in the car for a while, kissing slow and sweet until they were both panting, hard in their pants and shifting around the buckles on the seats uncomfortably. Bucky finally pulled away with a chuckle, leaning his forehead against Steve’s.

“Like I said,” he muttered, reaching down with one hand to adjust his jeans. “I want to.”

Steve laughed breathlessly. “Good to know. Some other time.”

“Probably soon, if you keep kissing me like that,” Bucky said. He leaned in again, pressing kisses to Steve’s cheeks, his eyebrows, his chin.

“You started it,” Steve said, eyes closed.

“Thank god,” Bucky said, and kissed him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case anyone is wondering, Clint Barton adopted an egg and hatched baby harpy Kate out of it. she's nine and is only slightly less of a mess than her father.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Unseelie,” Bucky spat. “They’re known for luring people into the water, drowning them and eating their intestines.”

Steve’s phone rang for the first time ever while he and Bucky were sparring. Actually sparring, too, because as much as Steve tried to distract Bucky, he was pretty ruthless about self-defense training.

They had spent a week on force fields. With no knowledge of what Steve was or what he could do, it was mostly about screwing around and seeing what happened. The force fields got easier and more mobile as they worked, although Steve was still clumsy with all of his magic. A few days ago, they had started working on forming magic into something besides a flat disk, although turned out to be useful. And also extremely satisfying to use, especially the first time Steve threw Bucky into a tree.

Steve didn’t even really register that his phone was making the little trilling noise, over where he had left it with his shoes. At the moment, both he and Bucky were sitting in the grass, panting and sweaty. All of the trees nearby had little sections gouged out from Steve throwing his magic around.

“That’s you, you know.”

“What?”

“That’s your phone.” Bucky smirked, and Steve frowned.

“I—no one ever calls me,” he said. Sure enough, the screen was lit, flashing Natasha’s name at him. It was true. In the two weeks since he had gotten the phone it had never rang. He got texts, but not calls.

“Better answer it then.” Bucky was laughing now. Steve got up and answered, feeling silly.

“Hi, Nat.”

“Steve,” she said. “Where are you two?”

Steve didn’t bother protesting her assumption that he was with Bucky.

“At Bucky’s. What’s up?”

“I found something. Someone.” She sounded excited, if a little annoyed. “He says he can help you, maybe tell you what you are, but he won’t give me any answers without meeting you first.”  
For a moment, everything stopped, the same way it always did when even the smallest piece of information was brought to Steve. The scent of the forest, Bucky’s hand on his ankle, Natasha’s voice in his ear, all of it disappeared for a second, leaving nothing but shock behind.

Steve hadn’t even thought about his family or what he was in the last few days. It was hard to, when there was new magic to learn and things to discover and Bucky. Much of Steve’s burning need for answers was being satisfied, and it made the biggest question mark in his life easy to ignore. Bucky’s lips also proved a huge distraction that occupied most of Steve’s brainpower, even when he was supposed to be doing something else.

Bucky was shaking Steve’s shoulder, frowning at him. He focused on that for a moment, remembering the world around him, but the sudden reminder of his quest brought guilt and the return of his desire for answers.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, Natasha, I’m here. That’s – that’s amazing. It’s perfect. I mean, I guess. Are you positive he knows?”

Natasha sighed. “No. I can’t be positive, of course, not until you meet him. But I know Brock, and he’s a wanderer, so if anyone would have met someone like you in their life, it’s him.”

Steve’s heart was thudding. “Okay, great. How do I meet him?”

“Come back to your place and I’ll tell you.”

“We’ll be there in ten,” Steve said, and hung up.

“What’s going on?” Bucky asked, as Steve started pulling on his shoes. Steve recounted the conversation breathlessly, stumbling over his words.

Bucky was quiet for a moment when he finished, then he smiled. “That’s great, Steve.” He turned away and started on his own socks, and Steve was too excited to think about the strange look in Bucky’s eyes.

Natasha was at Steve’s house, sitting on the back porch with Liho. She looked up when they came out of the woods, smiling triumphantly.

“I told you I’d find out,” she said, standing up.

“You still don’t even know if he knows,” Bucky said. He was scowling.

Natasha slanted a look at him, then flicked her eyes over both of them, before meeting Bucky’s frown. “I’m almost positive, and you should know by now that I’m always right, James.”

Bucky’s scowl deepened at the name, but he said nothing. Steve led them into the house.

“Natasha, tell me,” he said. “Who is he? Where can I meet him?”

“Just a contact,” Natasha said. “He’s a kelpie, a type of water fairy. They’re migratory, and he’s heading south soon, but right now he’s in DC and he heard from a friend of a friend that I’d been asking around about the things you can do. He said he can’t be sure without meeting you first, but the combination of things you can do plus Bucky’s theory that you’re extra-planar gave him an idea. He wouldn’t tell me what though.”

“So I need to go to DC to meet him?” Steve asked.

“It’s not exactly that easy,” she said. Bucky scoffed quietly. “If he can tell you what you are, he’ll want a fee, of course. And I told him New York would be better, and he agreed, for a little extra.”

This time, Bucky’s noise of protest was louder. “Are you kidding? A fee? What kind of—“

“Not everyone is kind-hearted and easygoing, James, you know that,” Natasha said calmly. “There is a reason we’re selective about who lives in Shield.”

“He’s a kelpie, Natasha!”

“What does that have to do with it?” Steve asked.

“Unseelie,” Bucky spat. “They’re known for luring people into the water, drowning them and eating their intestines.”

“Oh,” Steve said. “That sounds familiar.”

Natasha sighed. “Everyone is motivated by something, James, even Unseelie fey. If Brock wants money for answers, he’ll give them. This also grants us the ease of knowing he can’t lie if he says he knows what Steve is.”

“I could tell, anyway,” Steve added. “Even if he could lie.”

“What’s wrong?” Natasha asked Bucky. “This could be great. Steve could learn what he is, finally.”

Bucky opened his mouth, then wilted slightly. “Yeah, I know. It just seems dangerous.” He looked at Steve and smiled. “I’ll go with you.”

Steve smiled. “Great! When can we meet him?”

“He doesn’t know how easy it is for us to get to New York,” Natasha said. “So I told him you’d meet tonight in Brooklyn, at the bridge. He’s got an account number that you can wire money to.”

“I’ll go change,” Steve said, and headed up to his room.

***

“It’s weird being back in New York.” 

They were standing on the corner down the block from the Queens side of Wanda and Pietro’s shop. Slipping through the portal had been as easy as walking through a doorway, even if Steve couldn’t see anything on the other side. As promised, he’d emerged unscathed in a shop very similar to the one in Shield, albeit with a lot more crystals and candles sitting around.

“Why?” Next to Steve, Bucky was staring at a young woman with dark hair and an angular face. She was with a few friends, laughing at photos on a phone.

Steve nudged him. “Stop staring.”

Bucky stuck his tongue out at Steve, but looked away. “Why is it weird?”

“Got run out last time I was here,” Steve said, shrugging. “Scared a bunch of people because I had no control over my life, got chased out of the bar being called a witch. Feels like I should be hiding, but odds are no one remembers.”

Bucky nodded. “If no one has noticed you yet, we’re probably fine. And you don’t need to worry so much about freaking people out because you can’t control your magic now, right?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah. I guess it’s just that I’ve been hiding some way or another my whole life, and now that I may actually be a threat, I don’t feel like I have to.”

Bucky smiled. “Nice, right?”

“Yeah, it is. Weird, but nice.”

They stopped for coffee, then got on the subway to Brooklyn. The spot Natasha had described wasn’t hard to find – they were underneath the bridge, at the side of the river. They picked a bench and waited, twenty minutes early.

Bucky was quiet next to Steve, staring at the river with the slightest frown. Steve finally cleared his throat.

“Are you okay?”

“What?” Bucky looked at him. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

He was lying. Knowing Steve could tell never stopped him. “You’re quiet, is all.”

Bucky shrugged, looking away again. “I’m fine.”

Steve sighed and watched him. Bucky’s eyes flicked back to him after a minute.

“ _What?_ ”

“Buck…” Steve started.

“What are you gonna do if he knows?” Bucky asked abruptly.

This time it was Steve’s turn to ask, “What?”

“If this guy knows what you are, what are you gonna do about it?”

“I…I don’t know,” Steve said. “It’s hard to think that far ahead. I’ve never gotten this far before, obviously, and usually when I think I have a lead on something, it turns out to be a bust, so I stopped planning for what I’d do in a concrete way a long time ago, y’know?”

Bucky nodded. “You told us you’d try to find them, a few weeks ago.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “But, I mean, I wouldn’t even know how to start probably. I guess I have you and Nat and everyone else now to help, but--”

“Hey!” A voice from by the water hissed at them, rough and low, barely audible over the sound of the river and the cars high above. Steve and Bucky both turned to look, peering into the darkness at the water.

Just on the shore, even further under the bridge than they were, there was a--man. Mostly. He was wriggling, half out of the water on his back, hands at his waist, pushing down on something dark caught around his legs. Steve squinted, pretty sure he wasn’t just some crazy taking off his clothes under the bridge, and took a step closer--

It was hooves, and a tail. A whole skin, actually; the man was pulling an entire horse’s worth of fur off his body, leaving him naked and dripping. He finally pulled his legs out and stood, shaking his body out and examining his feet as he wrapped the fur around his waist. 

“Are you Rumlow?” Bucky asked.

The man looked up with a little smile, revealing sharp teeth. He stayed near the water but moved along it towards them, little waves lapping at his toes. 

“That’s me. Steve?”

“Hi,” Steve said, holding out a hand. Rumlow’s was clammy and cold. He smelled of brine and seaweed and copper, like blood. His hair was dark and slick, long around his face and tangled with seaweed. His aura was murky green, almost black, flowing around him like reeds in the water. Bucky’s shoulder brushed Steve, and he wanted to lean into it, but the predatory look in Rumlow’s eyes made him balk at showing any weakness.

Rumlow didn’t let go of Steve’s hand for a long time, squinting at him. He took a few breaths through his nose, and then he looked at Bucky, and he laughed, throwing his head back. It was a harsh, barking noise, an edge of mockery in it.

“Yeah, I know what you are,” he said, and no gray smoke accompanied the words. “Both of you. Oh, this is good.”

“What does that mean?” Steve asked, glancing at Bucky. Bucky looked just as confused.

“Uh-uh,” Rumlow sneered. “Money first.”

Steve looked at Bucky again. He was glaring at Rumlow, but Steve pulled out his phone and opened up the app Natasha had showed him to transfer money. “What’s the account number?”

Rumlow rattled it off for him, a nasty little smirk playing about his lips. Steve showed him the phone once the money went through, and Rumlow nodded.

“Far as I can tell,” he said, scratching his head. “You’re an angel.”

Steve stared at him for a long moment, then said, “What?” 

“Well, half-angel. Met one a few years back - shiny, self-righteous bastard, but hey, I’ve only met one. You got some human in you, just like your buddy here. And isn’t that cute,” he continued with another mean laugh. “The angel and the demon making time together, huh? Classic. Good luck.”

He turned, and started to pull his skin back on, sitting in the sand at the edge of the water.

“Wait,” Steve gasped. The world was spinning a little bit and he felt dizzy. “Wait, what - how do you know?”

Rumlow barely looked at him. “Smell, your magic, the look. You’re plane-touched, just like him, like me, but it’s a different place. Just trust me on this pal. Angel. Look into it.”

“How? How do I get there?” Steve was ready to grab Rumlow and drag him back onto the beach, but he was more than halfway transformed now, and Bucky was holding onto Steve’s arm, keeping him away from the water..

Rumlow shrugged, a strange motion with the way he was almost a seal now. “Dunno. Never been there. Figure it out, kid.”

The words were muffled at the end as his strange transformation completed, and standing on the beach in front of them was a huge black horse with red eyes. He huffed at them once and then turned and pulled himself into the river, disappearing in seconds.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets advice from more girlfriends, and things go a little bit left

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "Graphic Violence" tag applies a lot to this chapter, just a heads up.

Steve was quiet all the way back to Queens. Bucky kept their fingers laced tightly together but stayed silent, looking lost in his own thoughts.

The magic shop was dark and quiet when they used the spare key to let themselves in and stepped through the portal. Back in Shield, there wasn’t even the ambient noise of the city outside. 

Steve had always thought that learning what he was would come with somehow feeling different, as if just the knowledge would change him. Watching the dim witch-lights through the windows of Bucky’s car, Steve didn’t feel different at all. The jittery nerves from before the meeting with Rumlow had given way to nothing but exhaustion and confusion, and still more fucking questions about...everything.

Bucky broke the silence when they got to Steve’s house. “So. What now?”

Steve sighed. “I don’t know.”

Bucky made a frustrated sound and Steve looked at him. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You--you’ve been saying you want to find them, to get out of here, since you got here. Aren’t you gonna?”

Steve blinked, surprised by the intensity and the irritation in Bucky’s voice. “I don’t even know where to start, Bucky,” he said. “It’s not that simple, because when is it ever, but if it was, yeah of course I’d go find her. But I don’t even know how.”

“Seems like you do know what to do next then,” Bucky snapped.

“What’s up with you?” Steve asked, not sure why Bucky was snapping at him and too tired to be gentle about it. “You’ve been acting like this all day. What’s your problem?”

Bucky turned his glare on Steve for a moment, then looked away again. “Nothing,” he growled.

Steve stared at him. He didn’t need magic to know Bucky was lying, of course, but watching the black smoke curl out of Bucky’s mouth just made Steve’s own frustration twist deeper.

“You know what? Fine,” he managed through the sudden lump in his throat. 

The whole day was crashing over Steve repeatedly, the excitement and the nerves and the confusion, and now Bucky was - Bucky was something, and Steve had no idea what to do about it. He wanted to demand that Bucky tell him what was wrong, but he also knew it wouldn’t do any good, and he didn’t have the energy to be stubborn about it. It was all too much to think about and Steve just wanted to sleep.

“Have a good night,” he said, and climbed out of the car. He didn’t look back as Bucky put the car in gear and pulled away, faster than was probably safe. 

Steve slammed the front door behind him and stood in the hallway for a minute, fuming. There was just _too much shit_ today and the last thing he needed was Bucky’s on top of all of it. Grumbling, Steve dragged himself up to his bed and undressed before flopping down to stare at the ceiling. 

Then he just laid there, watched the night get darker and eventually give way to morning, eyelids heavy but unable to sleep.

He got up with the sun and pulled on running clothes, and found his feet immediately carrying him to Natasha’s house. She answered after a few minutes of knocking, scowling deeply. Her face cleared a little when he saw him though, taking in his expression. Her frown became more concerned, less grumpy.

“Hey,” she said, voice soft and rough with sleep. She was wearing a Catwoman t-shirt and matching boxers. “How did it go last night?”

Steve took a shaky breath. “Uh.” He laughed a little. “Well, he knew what I am.”

Natasha nodded slowly, then stepped back. “Come in, I’ll make coffee.”

Steve followed her into the kitchen, where she set about fiddling with the coffee pot. A few minutes later, Sharon came down, wrapped in an enormous red robe and carrying a pair of sweatpants. She handed them to Natasha, who pulled them on and kissed her cheek.

“Good morning, Steve.” Sharon took a seat beside him.

“Hi. Sorry to wake you guys up so early.”

“No problem,” Sharon said. “Is everything alright?”

“I’m not sure.”

Nat and Sharon exchanged a look. “Start at the beginning,” Sharon decided. “What did Rumlow say?”

Steve took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. He wasn’t even sure he believed it anymore, although his own magic had shown him the truth of Rumlow’s words.

“He said...he said I’m an angel.”

Silence greeted the words, and then Natasha swore quietly before sprinting out of the room and up the stairs. Sharon barely took notice, studying Steve instead.

“What’s bothering you?”

Steve blinked at her, then laid his head on the counter. “I’m not sure. Everything?”

Sharon raised an eyebrow and waited.

Steve sighed. “It’s just - okay, I suppose if demons exist, angels must too. But there’s still a part of me that just...can’t believe it. And I guess it’s--it’s weird, you know? I’ve been wondering about this my whole life and now I know suddenly and just - what do I do with that? What the hell is--” He pushed away from the counter and off the stool, paced around the room. 

“I’ve never even gotten this much,” he said. “I’ve never gotten this far and I should feel good about it but I’m just--just confused and it’s so stupid. And Bucky’s being all weird! He’s been weird since Nat called yesterday and last night he just--just left and I didn’t even ask him what was wrong!” The enormity of that hit him, accompanied by a wave of guilt. He stopped and leaned on the counter. “Fuck. I should have, should have said something to him.”

Steve still didn’t even know what he should have said to Bucky, or how to comfort him, but he should have. Shouldn’t have let him leave without at least asking, even if Bucky pulled away again.

“Okay,” Sharon said. Steve heard her stand up and take out mugs. “First of all, Bucky Barnes is emotionally unavailable at the best of times, and also a grown-ass man. You are clearly in no state to be dealing with anyone else’s emotional turmoil, so stop feeling guilty for not asking Bucky what his problem was.”

She set a mug of coffee down at Steve’s elbow, then stood there until he looked at her. “Second, this is huge for you, you’re right. This is the biggest piece of info you’ve ever gotten about your mother, and the biggest step towards finding her that you’ve ever taken. Feeling overwhelmed seems perfectly normal to me, so stop saying it’s stupid.

“And last, it’s okay if you don’t know what to do. You don’t need to make any decisions about this right now. Take a deep breath, eat some breakfast, calm down, then think.”

Steve sighed and straightened up. “Okay.” He nodded. “You’re right. I know you’re right I just--it’s a lot to take in.”

Sharon pushed him back towards a stool. “Yeah, it is. You don’t need to deal with it all at once. And you’re not dealing with it alone.”

Steve smiled tightly. “Thanks.”

Sharon began rummaging through the fridge. “Tell me about the fight.”

Steve’s shoulders drooped as he added sugar to his coffee. “He was being weird after Natasha called and when we got to New York. Asking what I was gonna do when I found out, and seemed really upset when I couldn’t answer. Because I don’t know. I don’t know what I can do, although Nat probably does. Or will find out.”

Sharon smiled faintly. “Okay, and then?”

“I was kind of in shock? I guess. I just sort of blanked out till we got back to my place and then he asked again and I said I don’t know and he got all frustrated and I asked what he was his problem was and he said nothing.” Steve sighed. “And I was confused and tired and frustrated and sick of him always saying that when there’s clearly something wrong, so I just went inside.”

Natasha burst back into the kitchen with an old book in her hands, flipping pages briskly. “Okay! This is--this is dumb.” She rolled her eyes, thumping the book onto the counter next to Steve and sitting down. Sharon looked like she was about to say something, but Steve just shrugged and leaned over Nat’s shoulder.

“What’s dumb?”

“Of all the things for you to be, you come from one of the most reclusive, little-known races in existence.” She gave him a wry smile. “No wonder no one here knew anything.”

“Abraham might,” Sharon said. “He’s old enough.”

Natasha hummed. “Maybe. But he’s in the Arctic Circle, so we’ll have to make do with the only book I own on celestial beings and their plane.”

“Could be worse. At least you own something.”

“I should have noticed it sooner,” Natasha said.

“You couldn’t have known, not if you’ve never even met one before,” Steve said.

Natasha just shrugged, then stopped flipping. She scanned the page for a moment, humming. “This says that the places where the planes touch are likely to be naturally holy - untouched areas of nature, hidden waterfalls or caves, even just really scenic views. ‘The type of place where one might stop and feel the world.’” She scoffed. “Who wrote this shit?” She continued flipping pages, more slowly. “There should be something here about building portals between the planes, rather than finding a natural one, which could take years. We just need to know what kind of components are needed and it should--”

A shrill noise erupted from all three of their cell phones, Nat’s on the counter, Sharon and Steve’s in their pockets. All three of them jumped slightly, Nat and Sharon quicker to recover than Steve, swiping at their phones to read the message while he pulled his out. 

“Shit,” Sharon said, straightening up and turning off the stove. She didn’t say anything else, just went for the stairs, taking them two at a time, Natasha on her heels.

Steve frowned, startled, then read the message on his phone. It was from Fury.

_Breach: Maximoff Magic, hostiles unknown, all available respond immediately._

Steve was still gaping at his phone when Nat and Sharon came rushing back down, hastily dressed, and headed for the door. Sharon was holstering two guns under her arms and several clips of ammo in a utility belt that also dangled two large knives. Steve stared, then stood to follow. Natasha stopped at the door. 

“You should stay here.”

“What? No! I can help.”

She fixed him with a hard look. “You’re barely trained with your magic, we don’t know who or what they are or even how many, and they’re hostile.”

Steve pushed past her and followed Sharon to her car. “Sounds like you could use the help then.”

“You’re a liability,” Natasha hissed.

“I can handle myself,” Steve said.

“Let’s go!” Sharon called, engine already running. Natasha growled, but didn’t argue anymore, just climbed into the passenger seat.

There was fighting in the streets a block away from the magic shop. Citizens of Shield were facing off against creatures of various sizes and shapes, magic was crackling in the air, and there were small fires everywhere. Sharon stopped the car halfway on the road and all three of them jumped out, taking in the chaos for a moment.

“What the fuck are these things?” Steve called over the noise. Sharon drew one of her guns and a knife.

“Hostile,” Natasha said back. “Ready for a fight, Rogers?”

Steve narrowed his eyes at the challenge and nodded once. The three of them started down the sidewalk towards the fighting, picking up speed at the sound of someone’s scream. Natasha’s magic pulsed, her aura growing around her, and Steve saw several tendrils of it reach out to wrap around Sharon, a moment before she took off at full speed. A moment after that, the magic lifted her, sending her soaring over a car. Natasha followed onto the hood of the car and then the roof, magic darting out of her palms in several sharp little points. They disappeared, and Steve heard something shriek, a sound that was completely inhuman.

Steve rounded the car as a body flopped to the ground. It was mess of slime, almost formless, steaming at Steve’s feet. He couldn’t see a face on it, but didn’t have the time to look before Nat was yelling, “Steve, behind you!”

He whirled to find a completely different monster heading towards him. It looked like an enormous black mosquito, flying at about chest height, pointing a long, sharp nose at Steve. For a moment, Steve was so startled he didn’t move. 

Weeks of Bucky kicking Steve’s ass in the forest came back before the creature reached him, and Steve stepped to the side. The mosquito-thing buzzed by, turned sharply, and Steve gathered his magic and brought a hand down in front of himself. A faintly golden force field followed the movement, smashing the bug into the pavement before it could take another pass at him.

Natasha jumped down next to him. “Okay, great. Next time take it out before it gets that close.” She took off again before Steve could reply, so he rolled his eyes and followed.

The next half block was mostly clear, but as soon as they rounded the corner onto the main street, the fighting thickened. Sharon was near by, taking shots at the things swarming through the air. Across the street, Wanda was making complicated gestures with her hands, her magic literally pulling the creatures apart as they moved. Pietro was down the street, twice as tall as normal, smashing creatures with his feet. Fury was there too, farther down, fully a cyclops - huge, one eyed, delicately crushing mosquito things as they flew around him. 

Something that looked a little like a spider but was almost as big as Steve hurtled out of an alley towards him and Natasha. He shouted, and they both dove in different directions. The thing launched itself at Steve and he hit the ground, rolling away from it before turning and flinging a hand out like he was throwing a frisbee, pushing magic with it. This time it sliced through the air in an arc, sliding clean through one of the thing’s legs, spraying ichor everywhere. The creature screamed, and before it could lunge at him again, Natasha was slicing through another leg. It stumbled, and Steve formed his magic into something like a sword in his hand, driving it through the creature’s head.

After that, things got blurry with adrenaline. Steve’s blood was pounding in his ears and he was using his magic in ways he’d never even tried before. The fight seemed to last forever, but ended abruptly as it had begun. Steve turned, looking for the next creature to crush or behead, and found the street quiet except for car alarms and the crackle of tiny fires. Turned out the shapeless slime things started fires when they got a hold of something.

Nat and Sharon were checking each other over half a block away. Tony was closer, lowering his hands slowly before sinking onto a curb. He was in an impressive suit of armor that began to disappear even as he started to sit down. He was wearing pajamas under it. Pepper picked her way over a moment later. Smoke was leaking from her nose, but all of her clothes were intact. Tony started talking immediately, reaching for her.

Thor was there, wielding an enormous warhammer and an honestly terrifying expression. There were smashed bodies littered about in little craters in the pavement where he had hit them, and Steve made a mental note to never get hit with the hammer.

He spotted Clint on a rooftop, poised and ready with a bow and arrow. The bow was massive, almost as tall as Clint was. He nodded when he and Steve made eye contact, but continued scanning the streets.

Steve leaned against a car, adrenaline starting to fade, leaving him feeling drained, physically and magically. He’d used his magic for longer periods of time, but never so intensely, or while exerting himself that way. It was exhausting. His sleepless night was catching up to him. 

Sam came up to him a minute later. Steve had a distinct memory of seeing a griffon swooping through the streets, picking up monsters from the ground and clawing at them with the talons on its front legs before dropping them. Sam looked completely human, now, except for the blood covering him up to his elbows and smeared around his mouth. He was wiping it away quickly with is shirt.

“How you feeling?” He asked, leaning next to Steve.

“Tired,” Steve said. “I could do more, but a nap sounds great. Didn’t sleep well last night anyway.”

“You did pretty good,” Sam said. “Especially for a man who’s never been in a fight.”

“I’ve been in fights,” Steve protested. Sam gave him a look. Steve shrugged. “Alright, not with...things like that. What are they, anyway?”

“Demons.” Fury stepped up next to them, also returned to his human form. “Imps, really. Nasty little bastards, but only good in swarms.”

“How did they get in?” Steve wondered.

“Overwhelmed the barriers,” Wanda said. The others were drifting closer, surrounding them in a loose circle. “In the shop. Enough of them simply slammed through the portal at once that it couldn’t keep them all out, and once it was broken it was easy.”

“Why were they here?” Sam asked.

“That’s what we don’t know,” Fury said.. “Demons have a hierarchy, and those were pretty low. Usually things like that are just following orders of something bigger and meaner, but that wasn’t much of an attack.”

Steve straightened up suddenly, looking at the people surrounding them. 

“What is it?” Sam said.

“Bucky,” Steve whispered. Panic spiked through his gut, a strong sense of foreboding suddenly hanging over him. “Where’s Bucky?”

Everyone’s eyes widened, and then Natasha had her phone out and pressed to her ear. There were a few tense moments of silence, and her frown deepened. 

“No answer,” she said, already heading for Sharon’s car. Steve made to follow, but Sam grabbed his wrist and pulled him to his own car across the street, miraculously unharmed. They piled in, Clint and Thor in the backseat, and Sam pulled away.

It was immediately obvious that Steve hadn’t been wrong, expecting the worst. Bucky’s front door was knocked inwards as though something had rammed straight through it. Steve stumbled out of the car and ran into the house, calling Bucky’s name. There was no answer.

Sam caught up to Steve. “Thor and Clint are looking around outside,” he muttered, and the two of them stepped further in.

The bar stools were scattered about the living room. The couch was smashed, and there was a knife embedded in the wall behind the table. Steve stared at the living room for only a moment before heading up the stairs to Bucky’s room. It was mostly in order, but there were a few guns out on the bed, some knives, a heavy belt. He’d been getting ready to go into town to fight when he’d been attacked. His phone was on the floor. Steve left it all and went back downstairs.

Clint and Thor had come inside, Wanda and Pietro behind them at the back door, surveying the room. Natasha was standing in the hallway with Sharon, Pepper and Tony behind them. Everyone had hard looks in their eyes, under the soot and the blood.

“That was a distraction,” Steve said. There was an angry buzzing in his skull and his stomach, magic churning along his skin. “Somebody took him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "a little bit left" may be an understatement


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He didn’t care if these--monsters could help him. He wanted to get Bucky and go home, take him back to Shield and Steve’s bed and never let him leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence! Lots of violence in this chapter. Also, body horror. It's not too bad, I think, but forewarned is forearmed.

There was a long moment of silence, broken finally when Natasha went to the kitchen and pulled out a dark green coffee mug. As she filled it with water, Tony pulled out his phone and began typing. A minute later, he wandered away with it pressed to his ear, hands already waving frantically.

Natasha set the mug on the counter. Wanda and Pietro stepped over to join her there, hands on her shoulders. She was quiet for a long time as she stared into the water, eyes blank and far away.

Finally, her shoulders dropped and she looked up. “Steve’s right. A separate force of much larger demons split away from the ones we fought before any of us even got there. They came here and grabbed him. He’s not on this plane anymore, either. They opened a portal and pulled him through.”

“Shit,” Clint said.

“Why would they take him?” Thor asked before Steve could finish processing it.

There was another pause while everyone looked at one another. Finally, Fury cleared his throat. 

“Barnes was raised on the demon plane from a young age to be a soldier. It’s not unusual over there, but because of the human in him, he lacked the kind of bloodlust and cruelty that’s innate in most of his kind. Eventually, he got out, and Natasha and I found him. He couldn’t remember much, body and mind tortured with magic for most of his life. He needed the help, and that’s when we brought him in.”

“Why would they take him back?” Pepper asked. Smoke was leaking from her mouth and her eyes had gone yellow and slitted.

“I don’t know. He never did remember why they kept him, half-human and all.”

“How do we get there?” Steve said.

“What?”

“The demon plane. That’s where they took him, right? How do we get there?”

“It’s not that simple,” Tony said. “Natural portals are nearly impossible to find, and building them takes time, and very specific materials. Besides that, there’s the question of how to get to Bucky once we’re there.”

“Can’t Natasha track him?” 

“The portal could take us anywhere on that plane, and we have no way of knowing where they are, or how to navigate it. Not to mention, demons aren’t exactly known for their hospitality. Who knows what we’d run into while we looked?”

“Then what do we do? How do we get him back?”

Silence greeted the question. Steve stared, but most of them wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“No,” Steve growled. “That’s not--there’s an entire town of magic users and magic creatures here and you’re telling me that we _can’t_ get him back? That you’re not even going to try?”

“No one said that,” Sam said, laying a hand on Steve’s arm. “We just don’t know how yet. Breathe, Steve, we all need to keep our heads together for this.” He took a deep breath. “Okay. Nat, you can track Bucky’s magic, right?”

“Not when he’s not on this plane.”

“Right. Tony, could the two of you work something with Natasha’s magic that would alert us or something if he did appear on this plane?”

Tony thought for a second, then nodded. “Yeah. But there’s no guarantee he’ll come back.”

“Just do it,” Sam said. “Pepper, you were born on a different plane. What do you know about navigating them?”

Pepper sighed. “It’s different for different planes, different creatures. What we need is an expert on the plane we’re looking at, they’d be able to tell us more.” She paused. “I’ll call Abraham and Howard. One of them will know more.” She stepped away and pulled out her phone.

“We’ll work with you on the tracking,” Pietro told Natasha. They left with Tony.

Fury sighed. “I need to check in on everyone. Keep me updated.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said. “The rest of us…” He hesitated, apparently out of steam. “I guess we wait.”

Sharon, Thor and Clint pursed their lips and nodded and split up. Steve’s anger was seeping out of him, leaving a helpless, sick feeling in it’s wake. He went out to the porch and sat on the steps, head in his hands. A minute later, there were footsteps behind him, bodies settling next to and behind him..

“We’ll get him,” Sam said. “Those bastards can’t have him.”

Steve nodded without looking up.

“And he’s alive,” Clint said. “If they wanted to kill him, they would have just done it here.”

“This is my fault,” Steve said. “Rumlow... that’s the only way they could have found us. Bucky said himself he’s barely left Shield in a year. Rumlow’s the first new person he’s met since he moved here. He must have - must have tipped them off or--”

“That is not your fault,” Sam said firmly. “Man, Bucky chose to go with you, and there’s no way you could have known Rumlow would do something like that.”

“We knew he was Unseelie,” Steve said. “Bucky said we shouldn’t trust him, and--”

“And he went because he wanted to make sure you were safe,” Clint cut in. “He made the choice to protect you, he knew there were risks. He’d be pissed if he heard you talking like he couldn’t handle himself and you know it, so don’t take that guilt. The only people at fault here are the demons who took him and Rumlow for telling them, got it?”

Steve took a deep, shaky breath and let it out. He nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I know.”

“You should get some rest,” Sam said. “I’ll take you home. We’ll get you as soon as we learn anything, alright?”

Steve nodded. “Okay.” 

He didn’t have the energy to argue. He couldn’t do any good, couldn’t help, so what did it matter if he stayed here or went home? 

He and Sam made the short drive to Steve’s in silence. Sam promised to call again as Steve got out of the car and didn’t drive away until he saw Steve go inside.

The house was quiet and empty and for the first time since moving to Shield, Steve missed the noise of the city. Still, once he was in bed, he found his eyelids drooping quickly, the sleepless night and the morning’s battle pulling him to sleep.

It felt like only a few minutes later when something woke Steve. It wasn’t a noise, he determined, lying stock still on the bed. The house was exactly as quiet as before, but there was definitely something different. He could feel it. Lingering magic, he thought, but it wasn’t something he recognized.

As quietly as he could, Steve slipped out of the bed and into his shoes. The house was new enough that nothing so much as squeaked as he made his way across the bedroom to the little studio he’d set up outside at the top of the stairs. 

There was no one there, and when he ghosted his way to the railing, he couldn’t see anything out of order. Still, he made his way down the stairs cautiously, looking around the bright living room and kitchen when he reached the bottom. Nothing.

Steve let out a breath, trying to calm his pounding heart. It was just the silence, he thought, stepping away from the stairs. He was on edge, and the silence of the house was getting to him still.

He was almost convinced when someone hit him, slamming a shoulder into Steve’s and a fist into his head as he made his way towards the kitchen. He flew across the living room, landing in a heap behind the couch, head ringing and vision blurry. He had barely enough time to look up before a hand was hauling him back by the wrist, yanking his arm behind him and up. Another arm snaked around his throat. 

Steve thrashed, trying to hit his assailant with his free hand as they dragged him back across the living room. His movements were sluggish, head still rattled from the blow. He tried to pull up his magic--and experienced his first moment of real terror when it simply sent a flare of pain through his head. He cried out, and the arm around his throat tightened, cutting him off. It was strangely solid, rough like armor but warm. Steve choked.

There was a flare of magic, and Steve knew he recognized it, could tell even through his graying vision and ringing ears that it was Bucky. He gasped, trying to get the name out, and then there was a flash of light, a jolt, magic across his skin, and then they were tumbling backwards together onto dirt and rocks.

Bucky - it had to be Bucky, he was sure of it - released his hold on Steve’s throat but kept his arm, rolling Steve to his stomach and keeping him pinned as he gasped for air. His lungs and throat ached, but his vision cleared, leaving only spots behind and the pain in his head. Steve noted a throbbing ache where Bucky had slammed his shoulder, too, but it was dull compared to his head.

“Bucky,” he gasped, and it was rough, barely a whimper. “Buck.”

“That’s enough,” someone said, followed by a rough growl. Steve tried to look up, but Bucky shoved him into the dirt once before letting go of his arm and walking away. White, rough sand and little rocks churned under his clawed toes, and Steve wanted to call out to him again but he coughed instead.

He pushed himself up to hands and knees, forced ragged breaths past his abused throat, then swayed to a crouch. The place was bright, harsh sunlight reflecting off the bright sand. The air was dry, hot, stagnant, hard on Steve’s raw throat. The earth was cracked, and Steve could see smoke curling from some of the smaller ones near him that led to enormous holes in the ground not too far away. Where ever they were - and Steve had a suspicion - it was like the whole place had been baked from above and below. 

“The resilience of angels.” It was the same voice from before, and Steve squinted up to the speaker.

It was a demon, male, close to Bucky in his build - wings, talons, horns. He was slightly shorter, but he looked older, skin a darker red, more weathered and wrinkled, reddish hair streaked with silver. There were more demons around them, a few dozen probably, arrayed in a semi-circle behind him. Steve gave them all a once over, then looked past the demon to where Bucky was standing.

He was just standing behind the demon. There was...armor of some kind, thick plates that looked like hide, maybe. They were similar to the plates that covered his arm, but larger and--Steve flinched. Every plate was hooked into Bucky’s skin at the edges, little claws holding it all in place instead of straps. Blood, black and thick, was dried around every wound, on his thighs, his chest, his other arm. Bucky didn’t even appear to notice. He stared at Steve blankly, not even recognizing him.

“Buck,” Steve whispered again, wanting to go to him. He made to stand, but the demon in front of Bucky reached out with a clawed hand and gripped his hair, shoving Steve back to his knees.

“Stop,” he growled. “You’ll move when I say you can move.”

Steve looked at him finally, snarling. “What did you do to him?”

“I’ve made him exactly what he is,” the demon said. “Reminded him of what he has always been, even with the human in him. That comes with perks though. I’m sure you already know.”

Steve glared. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The demon stared at him for a minute, and then threw his head back and laughed. “The kelpie wasn’t lying,” he said. “You have no idea what you can do. Oh, you poor little bastard,” he sighed and let go of Steve’s hair. “All alone in the human world.”

“Who are you?” Steve asked. 

The demon hummed. “You, little angel, can call me Pierce. Little angel-human monsters aren’t meant to use my true name. Would you like to find your mother, half-breed? We can help you do that.”

“What?” Steve said, startled by the abrupt shift in topic, and then balked. He didn’t care if these--monsters could help him. He wanted to get Bucky and go home, take him back to Shield and Steve’s bed and never let him leave. 

“You’re luckier than you know, half-breed,” the demon said. “You and our little--” and hear he repeated the sound he had made when he first called Bucky off. Steve gathered it was a name when he gestured to Bucky. “--both possess an ability unique to half-breed abominations like yourselves. While the rest of us are confined to one plane and bound to one body, you have not only the ability to change your form, but to walk between the worlds with ease. The rest of us must make do with natural portals or the ones we ourselves build, but you...you can simply reach out and your own blood will draw you home.”

Steve stared at him, and then at Bucky. That explained how easily they had gotten here, then. But another thought dawned - either Bucky hadn’t told Steve that he could do that when he learned what Steve was, or these bastards had done so much to him that he didn’t even remember that he could. Steve swallowed, remembering Nick’s words about Bucky being tortured with magic, taking in the blank expression on Bucky’s face. The anger and fear and pain of the morning returned full force, twisting in Steve’s chest like a knife wound.

“I can show you how,” Pierce said. “I can show you how to walk the world with ease, and we can find your mother.”

“Fuck you,” Steve spat. He didn’t need everyone’s warnings about demons to figure out that these were not friendly creatures. There was a coppery taste in the air, similar to the scent that Rumlow had produced, and Steve was beginning to associate it with evil. He glanced at Bucky again.

Pierce hummed, the nasty little smile not leaving his face. “That’s a pity. I really thought we could help each other.” He sighed and turned, looking between Steve and Bucky. “Come here,” he said to Bucky, and Bucky did, dead-eyed and silent.

“We can convince him, can’t we?” Pierce said, sliding a hand down Bucky’s face. A moment later, there was a surge of magic, and Bucky screamed and reeled backwards, but Pierce’s hand was buried in his hair now. Magic was crackling at the tips of Pierce’s clawed fingers and over Bucky’s head, sinking into his scalp in sharp little points.

“Stop!” Steve made to move towards them, ready to rip Pierce to absolute shreds, but hands gripped his arms and shoulders, holding him back firmly. Their claws dipped into Steve’s skin, pricking and drawing blood, and Steve didn’t even notice. Bucky fell to his knees, and Pierce didn’t let go, just turned to Steve while Bucky screamed and writhed.

“I can do this for a long time, little angel,” he taunted. “But I’ll stop if you take us to your plane.”

Steve’s blood boiled and his own magic surged in response. He didn’t stand a chance, but even if he died trying, he wanted to rip Pierce’s heart out and crush it.

Usually when Steve reached for his magic, it was a fiery feeling, heat straining in his chest like a string ready to snap. He was used to it, now, knew how to only take what he needed. 

This time, with rage and terror making his heart pound, Steve’s magic felt like an entire spool of thread unraveling too quickly inside him. It reached back when he called for it, winding around his body like a lover, fierce and hot suddenly too much, more than he’d ever felt it before. Steve’s back arched as he gasped through the ache and the burn, no longer aware of his surroundings.

He collapsed to his hands and knees again as the magic receded back into his shaking body. The hands that had been holding him were gone. He could barely breathe, the air too hot and thick around him, heavy with the stench of copper. But there was - groaning. Crying. Someone screamed, suddenly, and Steve looked up again at the bright sand and harsh light, blinking. 

The demons that had been surrounding them were trying to pick themselves up from the cracked earth. The one who was screaming was standing already, hands covered in blood, eyes--

“Shit,” Steve breathed, horrified. The demon’s eyes were gone, black sockets empty, blood already caked and dry around them. And there were less of them, Steve finally noticed, the crowd of demons significantly thinned. Instead of bodies there were black scorch marks on the ground, vaguely body shaped.

Demons were trying to get up, but they were disoriented, crying in pain when they moved. The blinded one stumbled over one of his comrades and fell, still howling.

Steve looked around frantically for Bucky. He had no idea how to get them out of here or where they could hide, but now would be a good time to do it, unless he’d - unless Bucky was - 

Bucky was on his back on the ground, his groans only slightly less piteous than the other demons. There was no blood on his face, thank god, and he was awake, grimacing as he sat up.

Steve crawled towards him, body aching and tired and shaky. “Bucky,” he rasped.

This time, Bucky looked at him, and Steve could have cried. He blinked and stared at Steve. “What the--Steve?”

“Buck.” Steve reached out a hand for him, smiling.

There was a sharp pain in his back, from his shoulder to just below his rib cage, and Steve was yanked backwards. He screamed, unable to stop it, as he flew through the air and landed hard, rolled across the dirt, tangled in…

...Feathers. Wings?

Steve stopped his roll, and stayed on his stomach for a moment, really taking stock of his body. He felt different, absolutely, the pain in his back notwithstanding. His shirt was gone, somehow, dirt and rocks pressing against his chest, which felt--huge. Slowly, cautious, Steve turned his head and looked over his shoulder, blinking rapidly at the sight of the enormous, feathered wings that sprouted from his shoulders. His skin was blue, too, and shimmered in the light.

A strangled, low noise escaped Steve’s throat, but a harsh reminder that he didn’t have any time for staring arrived in the form of a clawed hand descending on his hair.

Pierce hauled Steve up and tossed him on his back, then knelt over him. He drew his fist back and slammed it into Steve’s face, snarling.

“Always have to break them, first,” he said, raining blows across Steve’s face. “Little half-breeds with their will and their divided nature. Just have to show them--”

Bucky screamed as he slammed into Pierce, knocking him off Steve. Steve’s face and throat hurt, but he pushed himself up and rolled after them, clumsy on feet that had gotten bigger and flatter in his transformation. There was no time to wonder at it with Pierce and Bucky rolling across the dirt, snarling and fighting. Steve summoned up his magic and formed a blade in his hand, stumbling towards them.

Bucky clawed at Pierce, catching him just below the eye. Pierce howled, then shoved a hand at Bucky’s chest, magic snarling around him and sending him flying off. Pierce made to follow, but Steve was there, grabbing a wing and pulling, trying to throw Pierce away. 

There was a moment of triumph, as Steve shoved Pierce away from him but kept a hold of the wing. He brought the magical blade down and sliced through bone and ligament like they were nothing. Pierce screamed in pain, a high shrieking noise that grated and morphed into terror as he stepped into thin air over one of the gaping cracks in the ground.

And the sense of triumph vanished as Steve’s own clumsiness and momentum carried him towards the pit as well. He gasped, tried to pull back, make his wings work, _something,_ but it was no use, he was already falling, and he didn’t know how to fly, had never had wings before.

Pierce’s scream was already fading away, replaced with Bucky’s voice shouting, _“Steve!”_ behind him. 

The moment stretched on and on, too long. Steve wasn’t even sure if he was falling anymore, couldn’t even scream as darkness and heat swallowed him. The only consolation was the knowledge that Pierce would not be flying himself out of danger anymore than Steve would.

And then there were hands, rough and clawed, wrapping around Steve’s middle. Magic fizzled, then flared, and suddenly instead of falling into darkness, Steve was slamming onto mossy grass in a forest. Bucky landed firm and heavy on top of him, knocking grunts from them both. The fall had already stolen Steve’s breath, and he choked again for a moment until Bucky rolled off of him and he could gasp in the relatively cool air of the forest.

They lay there panting for a long time, until Steve could finally turn his head to look at Bucky, right next to him on the grass, dark skin and wings a stark contrast to the emerald and browns and dappled sunlight around them.

“Jesus,” Bucky said finally. “Jesus fucking Christ you scared the hell outta me.”

“Me? You’re the one who disappeared!”

_“Steve?”_ Sam’s voice cut them off before they could continue bickering. They turned and found him poised over them in griffin form, Natasha and Pepper on either side.

“Hi,” Steve said, letting his head fall back against the grass.

“Holy shit,” Sam said.

“That’s a good color on you, Steve,” Pepper said. 

“How the fuck did you get here?” Natasha demanded.

“Magic,” Steve said, and started to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully that was as exciting as i think it is.


	16. Chapter 16

“I found Mom,” Steve said. He stood over his father’s grave in Brooklyn, chilled autumn air whipping his hair across his forehead. All evidence pointed to Joseph Rogers not being a ghost, but Steve liked to talk anyway. Halloween was coming up. Natasha had offered to do a spell that would allow Steve to speak with Joe’s spirit from the afterlife, but Steve was pretty sure he’d be content like this. Who wanted to weigh their dead loved ones down with their crap? It seemed to defeat the purpose of finally passing on.

“Kind of. I haven’t actually seen her yet. But I know what she is. And I have a way to get to her.”

Steve sighed and tucked his hands deeper in his coat. “The thing is...I’m a little scared. She’s an angel, Dad - turns out you were right about one thing - and I’m...well, I’m more human than I am angel, and the last group of extra-planar people I met didn’t really take too kindly to halflings.”

It had been two long months since Bucky and Steve had come crashing back into Shield from the demon plane, bloodied, exhausted, and not at all human looking. It turned out that Bucky’s quick foray into Steve’s house to drag him away had alerted the sensors at Shield - a suddenly open portal straight in was cause for alarm, even if the people going through lived there. 

So, Sam had gone to Steve’s to check it out and by the time they had gotten back less than an hour later, everyone was on high alert. The reception at the sight of them laying in the grass, bickering half-heartedly was mixed alarm and relief. 

Tony had thrown a small temper tantrum when he found out that Steve and Bucky could traverse planes so easily. He and Fury were working on a way to stop them from being able to do it inside Shield, but it was looking like a lost cause.

“And she gave me up,” Steve continued. “I mean, I guess she liked you well enough, but she just left me, never came looking. So who knows if she’d even be glad to see me?

“Natasha - of all people - thinks maybe the angels are just as strict as the demons were about the half-breed thing, but a lot less evil. So rather than turn me into a child soldier and use me to wage war on other worlds, they just made her send me to you. Nat thinks maybe she wanted to keep me, but the angels wouldn’t let her.”

Nat had been doing a lot of reading lately, and there had been several conference calls with Abraham, a magician who was on Howard Stark’s Arctic Expedition with him. He had eventually cut his stay in the Arctic short to come back to Shield and look Steve and Bucky over. He was several hundred years old, something about his magic drastically slowing his aging process, and he was, of course, the only person in Shield who had ever met an angel. He was also well versed in several different areas of science and magic and had taken charge of healing both of them and teaching Steve more about his magic.

Steve sighed. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I’ve wanted to find her my whole life and now that the opportunity is right there - literally, Dad, I can open a door myself - I’m a little conflicted.”

He was quiet for a long time, scuffing a foot through the leaves. Finally he laughed softly.

“Listen to me. I don’t know what I _want._ ” He smiled and shoved his nose into his scarf, blushing. “I know what I want. I got it, I think. I met someone. Bucky. We got a lot in common.” Steve laughed. “And we got these great people in our neighborhood. You’d like ‘em. Just like a little family. Been taking good care of both of us since we…” Steve huffed. “Man, that’s a long story. But it’s good, Dad. They’re good people. And they want me around, which is kind of a first. So. I’m thinking about staying.”

He stood in the quiet and the cold for a few minutes longer. Eventually, Bucky wandered back over, slipping his hand into Steve’s pocket and lacing their fingers together.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” Steve turned and tilted his head for a kiss. Bucky obliged, smiling. “Dad, this is Bucky. Bucky, this is my dad, Joe.”

“Nice to meet you, Joe,” Bucky said.

“He’d like you.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm. He had good taste.”

Bucky laughed. “You’re a little biased, Rogers.”

Steve shrugged. “Yeah, but you’re a good man, Bucky Barnes. He’d have liked you.”

Bucky just smiled and leaned against Steve. “How you feeling?”

“Okay,” Steve said. “You?”

“Okay.”

Recovery had been a lot rougher on Bucky. He didn’t remember a lot of what happened, but of course he could remember Steve. He constantly felt guilty about kidnapping him, even though Steve reminded him every time that he’d also saved Steve’s life. It was a work in progress for both of them.

And it had taken a while, but he’d finally asked Steve point blank if he was going to leave. Steve still wasn’t sure, but he also knew that even if he did go to find his mother, he was coming back. That had helped.

“Wanna head home?” Bucky asked.

Steve squeezed his hand and smiled. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god it's done. JEEZUM CROW I'M TIRED. What a corny ending, right? It's okay, I think they deserve something corny after all that violence.  
> THE BIGGEST SHOUT OUT AND HUG TO MY BESTIE AND BETA [ALEC.](http://alecjmarsh.tumblr.com/) She's a gift, honestly. Also [Mab](http://queenmabscherzo.tumblr.com/) for cheerleading. Also a gift :')  
> Please comment! I love it. Also, come hang out with me on [tumblr](http://lisa-in-the-sky.tumblr.com/) though at this point if you haven't already you probably won't. But I'm there and I like making friends!  
> Friendly reminder that [there is art!](http://k-partist.tumblr.com/post/150708118214/more-stucky-big-bang-ciela-lisa-in-the-sky) Kaitlin did a fantastic job and I am also the absolute worst and she deserves all of the praise and love for the amazing job she did with the drivel I sent her :')


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